“I love being in front of the camera. I love having people watch me,” says Sofia Kappel in a new trailer for “Pleasure.” Ninja Thyberg’s feature debut tells the story of Bella Cherry (Kappel) a young woman who moves from a small town in Sweden to LA with the goal of becoming “the next big pornstar.”
Bella is determined to “be the best.” Her introduction to the industry includes bananas, bondage, and ball gags, but she’s willing and eager to try plenty more to make a name for herself. The spot depicts Bella offering to do a job for free, and a friend and colleague warning her that “everybody’s going to want to be booking [her] for crazier and crazier shit.”
“Pleasure” originated as a short of the same name, which Thyberg premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. She took home the Canal+ Award for best short film. The feature version of “Pleasure” made its world premiere at Sundance last year.
“I think the biggest shift in going from the short to the feature was that I knew what I needed in order to do this story justice. I needed to do proper research because the short film was made through research that I did from my home in Sweden,” Thyberg told Film Inquiry. “I read books, watched documentaries, and thought I was very well educated on the subject. At the same time, because my intention was to show the real people behind stereotypes, I felt that I was doing something false because I didn’t know anything for real about these people. And in order to really show the real world and the real people, I knew I had to go and find a story at the centre of the porn industry in Los Angeles.”
The writer-director continued, “I started doing research in the summer of 2014, and it took me four years to complete all the research. I really had to dig my way into the core of the industry, so I spent a lot of time on porn sets. And after a while, I was able to move into a model house and actually live with girls who worked in the industry. I became friends with these people, and I became a part of the community after a while. So I went to the parties and hung out with them privately as well.”
“Pleasure” hits theaters May 13.
