PRESS RELEASE:
AORTA films Celebrates 10 Years
of Creating Ethical Queer Porn
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 12, 2025
Contact: Inara Tayao-Lucero
inara@inara.agency
NEW YORK, March 12, 2025 – As AORTA films (AORTA) marks its 10th anniversary, the indie, queer porn studio will celebrate its collaborators and members in a series of film compilations and dynamic experiences (online and in-person) now through March 2026. AORTA creates ethical porn programming as a fundamental labor practice that puts people above profits. Championing pleasure as a basic human right, the experimental studio reimagines queer and trans joy, resistance, and survival through pornography.
AORTAlive
The studio is launching AORTAlive, its newest offering of adult digital programming that includes live workshops, panel discussions, web performances and more. The events are designed to deepen cross-disciplinary kink knowledge, build community within the adult industry and give audiences intimate access to performers. Members of AORTAfilms.com enjoy reduced-fee $10 tickets; tickets range from $20-30 for non-members. All events include seven-day access to post recordings.
BEDDED
AORTA’s bi-annual online queer porn film festival BEDDED celebrates the work of domestic and international creators. Offered exclusively for members, BEDDED X will stream this June with BEDDED All-Stars following this December.
Hey Everybody: Let’s Make a Porno!
AORTA invites viewers to become active participants in Hey Everybody: Let’s Make a Porno (HELMAP). Through this immersive performance, audiences engage in exercises to deepen their understanding of the adult industry, consent practices and the craft of making porn. They actively contribute ideas to co-create a scene and serve as the live audience for the porn shoot.
The first HELMAP, shot last November at the PornyDays Film Festival in Zurich, will premiere this April as part of an evolving program tailored for festivals, arts organizations, and private events, with more HELMAP engagements to be announced this year.
Induction Series: “Haunted”
In collaboration with author Carmen Maria Machado (“In the Dream House”, “Her Body and Other Parties”), AORTA will debut “Haunted” on the film festival circuit later this year before releasing it on its website. The queer, erotic horror project consists of a central feature film and seven pornographic shorts that expand its narrative through explicit scenes. “Haunted” is the first installment in AORTA’s Induction Series, a program designed to spark conversations about queer pornography as a vital cultural instigator and significant art form.
“AORTA films was born out of a desire for queer and trans people to see themselves reflected on screen with reverence, respect and desire,” said Creative Director Mahx Capacity. “As our bodies, genders and queerness face growing threats, we believe that standing strong in our full human capacity–not just for survival, but for pleasure–is a charged, radical act. Refusing to believe that our assimilation will pacify fascism, queer porn pushes back against far-right ideology and holds the line: we exist, we’re not going anywhere and joyous pleasure is our human right.”
With memberships starting at $8 per month (billed annually), AORTA offers access to over 95 films, the studio’s “Community Hardcore” queer clip library, BEDDED festival and Induction Series on https://aortafilms.com/.
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About AORTA films
AORTA films champions queer and trans indie porn to create a future of ethical fuckery. Founded in 2015, the studio has been creating explicit, experimental queer cinema–“lusty, opulent, ethical fuckery”–ever since. Led by Creative Director Mahx Capacity (they/them), AORTA films produces short films & features, as well as innovative programming including a queer clip library, a semi-annual film festival, and digital adult events. The studio is best known for their work creating innovative, cinematic, sex-positive porn featuring performers across a diverse range of identities, bodies, and genders. AORTA’s first feature “(W/HOLE)” won Best Film at the Vienna Porn Film Festival and Hacker Porn Film Festival in 2019, and their short films have won Best Short honors at festivals around the world.