eurobabeforum.com

Czech porn pioneer

By: Bryn Bailer, 12. 11. 2007, More by this author:

As a young girl, Ivana Mattei dreamed of becoming a professional race car driver, but had to settle for selling them instead at an Italian Fiat dealership.

In 1994, she changed her sales focus from sexy sports cars to sex itself, when she opened Bohem production, which was initially a talent agency specializing in providing actors and actresses for pornographic video productions.
Currently, Mattei oversees operations for the Prague-based company, which currently makes adult-entertainment films and acts as a distribution house for films produced by other pornographic production houses, including Italy-based Rocco Siffredi Produzioni, ATV Entertainment and Pink’o Enterprise. She started distributing films in 1993; opened a talent agency in 1994, specializing in actors and actresses for pornographic videos; and then moved into production in 1996. This year her company produced three films. The firm’s revenues are about Kč 10 million (¬ 375,800) per year.


Q: What was the Czech adult entertainment industry like when you opened your company?

A: When we started, there was nobody here. We made the first Czech stars like [pornography actresses] Laura Angel and Silvia Saint. They started with Bohem. Today, of course, there are many companies that produce or [operate a talent] agency, but before all of them, it was just Bohem.

Now I sell DVD rights, copyrights and my [film] productions. I go to every [sex-industry related] show in the world and try to sell my films in Italy, Germany and America. This is my business.


Q: Is it difficult for a woman to workin a male-dominated industry?

A: It is not easy in this business for a woman, it’s true. It was very difficult in the beginning because everybody thought that I [was an] actress. ... It is not a hard [business] for me now, but it is a very hard business for actresses. … I understand the problems that actresses have in this business. I try to [employ] people who really want to work [in porn], not people who just need money. … I never shoot something that the actress doesn’t like. I know they will do it for money, but I don’t accept it. I want to make real films with real sex and I want to work with people who like this job because I understand how difficult it is.


Q: How many actors and actresses are in your company?

A: I know lot of actresses, and I work with maybe 300 to 400 actresses, but they are not ‘my’ actresses. My company was [a talent] agency, but not anymore. … It is a job [that will drive you] crazy because you never have time. Every five seconds you have to take mobile [phone calls.] I have my private life, and my sons.


Q: What did you do before your current profession?

A: I was working [as a car saleswoman] for Fiat, in Rome, in Italy. I am not Italian, but I was living in Italy because I was married to an Italian man. … My [ex] husband, had a distribution company for hardcore porn films in Italy. Then he asked me to open a company in Czech Republic. He put me in this business.


Q: Do you think the adult entertainment film industry will get bigger here in the Czech Republic?

A: You know, I think it will never be bigger and never be smaller. I think that [the industry will keep changing]. Previously, we had [VCR] cassettes. The [copy-protected] tape had Czech dubbing, and everything was perfect. Later, you had DVDs, and you had to have five languages inside ... and anybody can make copies of DVDs. Now there is [cable] television, the Internet—and I don’t know what will come later. I think the business [will] never finish, just change.


Q: In 10 years, where do you want to be professionally?

A: I hope that I will be in the same office, and I will have spent 23 years in erotica. I like my business, and I do not want to leave now—but it is a very difficult business to be in.


Q: How much does an actor or actress make working in a pornographic film?

A: Normally an actress makes something like € 500 per [sex] scene. Of course, a very famous actress will make more, and a starting actress less. When they are stars [such as] Laura Angel or Silvia Saint, they can make € 2,000 or € 2,500 [per scene]. Normally, actors make something like Kč 10,000, I think [about] $500.


Q: Why do actresses get paid more?

A: Because men do not have so many [physical and emotional] problems [that limit their availability.] It is not like when you have sex with somebody at home. [There] you are excited, you want him, you like him; you make [love] two or three hours. It’s perfect. When you do it on film … sometimes you have actors that you don’t like, sometimes you have to work five or six hours [on a single scene]. It is really hard, and actresses really need one week without sex. Then you can start working again.


Q: That’s surprising. I would think the men would not be able to perform that often.

A: [No answer].


Q: Do you think actresses enjoy working in the porn industry?

A: At the start, the woman is happy go to work, to see different countries, beautiful actors, perfect sex. But in two years, normally, she starts to be sad. It is not possible to put together love and [pornographic] work. … Normally, the male [actor] works for 20 years, no problem. For the women, the maximum is five years and then they are finished. Normally, [they work for just] two years.


Q: Why did you get out of the talent industry business?

A: Because you have to … say to new [potential] actresses, ‘Come in the business, it is perfect!’ But I say, ‘If you want to come to this business you have to understand that maybe one day you want to have babies, and that maybe one day, you don’t want to have somebody know what you were doing. You have to think about it.’ And when you speak like this, not a lot of women come [for jobs]. ... An agency has to take lots of new girls and I cannot do it any more. I am a woman, and this is a problem.