Private Project

Pornographic practices against death drive

Set against the backdrop of Chile’s social uprising and the pandemic, this video essay delves into how pornography becomes both a site of resistance and a target of censorship in times of crisis. Through a public BDSM performance, it reflects on the ethical implications of mass image circulation and explores the death drive as a creative force within pornography.

The essay examines initiatives like Erotida, Chile’s first audiovisual production company led by sex workers; the Excéntrico festival of critical pornography; and short films that transform desire and pain into political denunciation. It also revisits three iconic cases of censorship —an erotic mural, a luminous protest, and a political performance— revealing how pornography is scapegoated by institutional violence. In this context, the work uncovers the intricate intersections of sexuality, the death drive, and repression during moments of social collapse. The spectrum of grief is broad and the journeys of libido are unpredictable.

  • Fernanda Herrada
    Director
  • Fernanda Herrada
    Writer
  • Errada
    Producer
  • Roma Murúa
    Key Cast
  • Lastre
    Key Cast
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Prácticas pornográficas frente a la pulsión de muerte
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    21 minutes 52 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 12, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    100 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Chile, Spain
  • Country of Filming:
    Spain
  • Language:
    Spanish
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Porn Film Festival of Amsterdam
    Amsterdam
    Netherlands
    February 7, 2025
    European Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Festival Excéntrico
    Santiago
    Chile
    January 25, 2025
    Latinoamerican premiere
    Official Selection
Director Biography - Fernanda Herrada

Pornographer, theater designer, dyke, sex worker, illustrator and self-taught photographer and researcher born in Melipilla, Chile.
His artistic practice is built from political denunciation and strong institutional criticism, analyzing how pleasure and violence are constantly confronted, mixed or dissociated, with pornography being the language in which different disciplines come together.
He has directed, filmed, edited and performed in different BDSM short films, including the Ballbusting short film Pikachu v/s Piñera (Co-direction and editing, Best International Short Film, HPFF 2021 and Best Porn Short Film at the Erotic & Bizarre Film festival 2022), the martial arts and BDSM short film "Knockout" (Protagonist, from Sacred Sex productions) and "The edge of the Maipo River" (Director and camerawoman, 2022). In 2023 he is part of the MACBA Independent Studies Program with his research Pornographic practices against the death drive and illustrates for the Amateur Porn Comic Editorial of Barcelona. In 2024 he founded the Deepfake collective with the visual artist Roma Murúa, focused on the creation of monstrous pornography through 3D modeling tools and augmented reality. She is currently in Barcelona pursuing a Master's degree in queer/feminist visual studies at the Miguel Henríquez University with her research to build an archive of sexual work in Santiago de Chile.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Above all, this video essay is a tribute to some of my favorite local pornographic artists and how their work sustained me during the uprising and the pandemic. However, it is also an expression of genuine concern about the rise in the threshold of visual violence and how it feeds our death drive, as well as the state’s instrumentalization of pornography to fuel hate speech.