José Bénazéraf


José Bénazéraf was a French filmmaker and producer who specialised in erotic films.

Life and career

Bénazéraf was born in Casablanca, French Morocco on January 8, 1922. After completing his studies in political sciences, he started his film career in 1958 producing Les lavandières du Portugal, a film by Pierre Gaspard-Huit, and went on to direct and write numerous erotic films in the 1960s. He started to direct erotic feature films in 1961 with L'éternité pour nous.
At the end of the 1970s, he moved his attention to the direct-to-video market.
He died in Chiclana de la Frontera.

Views on filmmaking

In 1973, Bénazéraf stated he did not make message films, and that one of the reasons he made films was to "disturb the French", who were, he felt, not disturbed by anything, neither politically nor sexually.
Bénazéraf also said that he attempted "to poeticise eroticism", whereas many at that time tended to accentuate pornography. He found pornographic films "horribly sad" and called them "anti-eroticism". According to Bénazéraf, eroticism was something "which creates a climate, which creates, which awakes, which sublimises desire", and the effect of pornography was the opposite.

Filmography

;As director
;As actor