José Bénazéraf
José Bénazéraf (8 January 1922 – 1 December 2012) was a French filmmaker and producer who specialised in erotic films. Life and career. Bénazéraf was born in Casablanca, French Morocco on 8 January 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" (French: "déranger les Français"), who were, he felt, not disturbed by anything, neither politically nor sexually. Bénazéraf also said that he attempted "to poeticise eroticism" (French: poétiser l'érotisme), whereas many at that time tended to accentuate pornography. He found pornographic films "horribly sad" (French: "horriblement triste") and called them "anti-eroticism" (French: "anti-érotisme"). According to Bénazéraf, eroticism was something "which creates a climate , which creates, which awakes, which sublimises desire" (French: "qui crée un climat, qui crée, qui suscite, qui sublimise le désir"), and the effect of pornography was the opposite.