Axel Braun

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Axel Braun is an Italian adult film director. He is the son of pornography pioneer Lasse Braun, among the first to successfully campaign for the legalisation of pornography in Europe.

1 Early life
2 Film career
3 Trivia
4 Filmography

[edit] Early life

Axel was born and raised in Italy, where he received a privileged and wealthy upbringing, studying Classics and learning five languages. As a child he was skilled at drawing, and harboured ambitions to be a cartoonist. He was reputedly inspired to pursue a career as a film director by the Zoltan Korda's 1939 film The Four Feathers. Axel began to travel with his father to learn about film-making, as his father's understudy. Lasse introduced him to the world of adult film-making, giving the younger Braun a solid base of expertise and experience even as a young man.

[edit] Film career

Later, Axel moved permanently to Los Angeles to attend Columbia College Hollywood, where he eventually graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Cinema. In 1995 Braun met established Italian porn producer Joano Ceretti on the set of one of his father's films in Budapest. The two quickly formed a strong working relationship, and it was under Ceretti as a producer that Braun landed his first directing role, on 1996's The Adventures of the G-Man, the first installment of a successful series that would garner both critical and commercial success in Italy. In 1997 Antonio Passolini, an accomplished director and longtime friend, gave Braun his first break in the American hardcore market, as producer of The Book of Lust, released on VCA.

In 2000, during the filming of G-Spot Confidential, Braun was arrested and charged with obscenity (of which he was later cleared). The film was being shot on location between America and Europe, but eight months into production the whole film was seized at an airport and Braun was detained. Following this episode, Braun went on a four-month hiatus from the pornography industry.

In January 2002 Patrick Collins, the owner of Elegant Angel, head-hunted and signed Braun to an exclusive directing contract. Braun directed many films for the company, and in January 2003 became General Manager of Elegant Angel. In September 2003 Elegant Angel released his high-budget feature film Compulsion, which he wrote, produced, directed, shot and edited himself, and which later won two AVN Awards, including one for Best Screenplay. That same year Braun also swept the AFW Awards, winning in all six Film categories, triumphed in Spain, winning Best Director and Best Film at the NINFA Awards, in Berlin, taking home the Best Film statuette, in Milan, winning (rather ironically, since he was born and raised in Italy) Best Foreign Director, and finally back in L.A. the coveted XRCO Award for Best Film.

After a disastrous time working for Private Media Group, the world's biggest adult film company, Braun left to join New Sensations/Digital Sin in early 2004. After a year and a half of international success, whereby Braun and his films won dozens of awards in adult movie awards ceremonies throughout the world, Braun left the company to become freelance in July 2005, and now works non-exclusively for Sin City, Hustler and VCA, among others.

[edit] Trivia

Braun has one son, born July 24, 1992.
Braun's speciality is female ejaculation films. In November 2002, he insured his hands with Lloyds of London for $2,000,000 each, as a publicity stunt to raise the profile of female ejaculation.