Kristen Bjorn

This article is about the pornographic movie director. For Norwegian skier, see Kristian Bjørn.
Kristen Bjorn
Born (1957-10-12) 12 October 1957
London, England, United Kingdom
Height 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Weight 175 lb (79 kg; 12.5 st)
Website http://www.kristenbjorn.com
No. of adult films 39 (as a director)

Kristen Bjorn (12 October 1957 in London, England) is the stage name of a British director and producer of gay pornographic films and a former gay porn film actor.

In the foreword to a book devoted to Kristen Bjorn's work, director William Higgins wrote that, "[in] the relatively brief history of hardcore gay videos, Kristen Bjorn has emerged unchallenged as the best director to date."[1]

Early life

Bjorn was born in London, the son of a Russian mother and a British father. He was raised in Washington, D.C., where his father was stationed as a diplomat. He has a brother and two sisters. In an interview conducted in 1997, Bjorn stated that only one of his sisters knows his profession as a maker of gay erotic films.[2]

After graduating from high school, Bjorn set out to travel widely, to places including Asia, India, and Europe. His career goal at the time was to be "a photographer for a magazine like National Geographic. I wanted to travel across the world and photograph people. I was really very interested in different cultures."[3]

Beginning of his career in pornography

Bjorn arrived in San Francisco in 1978, where he encountered the gay community for the first time. "[I]t was all very strange to me."[3] Encouraged by the ideal of male beauty that he found in gay erotic magazines, Bjorn took up working out and paying attention to his own physique. Around 1980, he was photographed by Fred Bisonnes for Mandate magazine. This was followed by two appearances in Falcon videos: Biker's Liberty (Falcon Studios 30, 1983) and The New Breed (Falcon Studios 32, 1983). Falcon chose the pseudonym Kristen Bjorn for him due to his resemblance to the Swedish tennis player Björn Borg.[4]

Erotic photographer and director

In 1982, Bjorn arrived in Brazil, where he was to spend eight years. Initially, he worked as a photographer, producing as many as 20 or 25 photo sets a month. His first video, Tropical Heatwave, appeared in 1989. This production set the pattern for the dozens more to follow.

Given his interest in travel and foreign cultures,[5] many of Bjorn’s videos feature men of clearly identifiable ethnic backgrounds and nationalities in typical surroundings. The titles of his videos are indicative of this characteristic: Carnaval in Rio (1989), Manhattan Latin (1990), Caribbean Beat (1990), A Sailor in Sydney (1990), Montreal Men (1992), The Vampire of Budapest (1995), and so forth. He prefers to work with amateur models rather than with porn stars. In his early films, the majority of his performers identified themselves as heterosexual.

Bjorn places great emphasis on the quality of his photography; it usually takes him about four days to film a single scene. Consequently, his production budgets are unusually high given the standards of the gay porn industry. He typically lives in the country in which his videos are produced. Thus, his emigration to Australia in 1990 gave rise to what he calls his "Australian trilogy" of movies;[6] when he returned to Brazil in 1993, a number of South American-themed films followed.

Filmography

Director/videographer
  • Tropical Heatwave (1989)
  • Carnaval in Rio (1990)
  • Island Fever (1990)
  • Manhattan Latin (1991)
  • Caribbean Heat (1991)
  • A Sailor in Sydney (1992)
  • Jackaroos (1992)
  • Manly Beach (1992)
  • Call of the Wild (1993)
  • Montreal Men (1993)
  • Jungle Heat (1994)
  • Paradise Plantation (1994)
  • Mystery Men (1994)
  • The Caracas Adventure (1995)
  • The Vampire of Budapest (1995)
  • Comrades in Arms (1995)
  • Hungary for Men (1996)
  • A World of Men (1996)
  • Gangsters at Large (1996)
  • Amazon Adventure (1996)
  • Manwatcher (1997)
  • The Anchor Hotel (1997)
  • Hot Times in Little Havana (1998)
  • Thick as Thieves (1998)
  • Wet Dreams 1 (1999)
  • Wet Dreams 2 (1999)
  • Making It with Kristen Bjorn (documentary) (1999)
  • The Isle of Man (2000)
  • Dreamers (2000)
  • The Agony of Ecstasy (documentary) (2000)
  • Men Amongst the Ruins (2001)
  • Bone Island (2001)
  • Crossroads of Desire (2002)
  • Parashooter (2003)
  • Males Tales (2003)
  • Manville (2004)
  • Fire Dance (2004)
  • Rocks & Hard Places 1&2 (2005)
  • El Rancho (2005)
  • Skin Deep 1&2 (2006)
  • Action! 1&2 (2007)
  • Pride 1&2 (2007)
  • Trouser Bar (2016)
  • Wild Attraction
Executive producer (with other directors)

Awards and nominations

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading

Awards
Preceded by
Wash West
for Naked Highway		 GayVN Awards for Best Director
for Man Watcher
1998 		Succeeded by
Jerry Douglas
for Dream Team

External links

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