CineKink Announces This Year's Kinky Film Festival Award Winners

NEW YORK CITY—It's been a whirlwind few days of screenings and parties surrounding the 16th annual Kinky Film Festival, and organizers for CineKink NYC/2019 have announced the recipients of awards in a range of categories, whose presentations took place during the film festival's closing celebration on Sunday, April 7, 2019. “It’s exciting to see sex-positive filmmaking come into its own, and display such a range of voices and talent,” said Lisa Vandever, CineKink co-founder and director. "Congratulations and thanks are in order, not just to the winners tonight, but to all of the filmmakers for contributing to this year’s outstanding line-up!" The festival’s first-ever CineKink Artist Spotlight award, designed to recognize outstanding artistry over a body of work, was given to Jennifer Lyon Bell, whose erotic films Headshot, Matinee, Skin Like Sun, Silver Shoes and this season’s Adorn, have been featured at CineKink since 2006. Audience Choice Awards for CineKink 2019 were presented to The Artist & The Pervert (Beatrice Behn and René Gebhardt) for Best Documentary Feature, with Two in The Bush: A Love Story (Laura Madalinski) winning for Best Narrative Feature, and Sickies Making Films (Joe Tropea) receiving an Honorable Mention. In the shorts competition, juried festival awards went to Adorn (Jennifer Lyon Bell) for Best Dramatic Short, Me Time (Iyabo Boyd) for Best Comedy Short, The Baroness (Isabel Faintych) tied with What’s Your Policy On Orgasms? (Zoe D’Amaro) for Best Documentary Short, Remember Me (Luis Camacho) for Best Musical Short and Sweet Sweet Kink: A Collection of BDSM Stories (Maggie Bailey) for Best Animated Short. Honorable Best Mention awards were presented to Lesson 1 and Lesson 8 (Alberto Ferreras), Birthday (Shine Louise Houston), I Am Lucie Bee (Ms. Naughty) and The Alley (Inka Winter). Determining the shorts awards, CineKink jurors this year included Christopher Holland of Film Festival Secrets; Viviane Tang, co-founder of The Pleasure Salon; and Bill Woods, a film festival programmer and curator of the New Filmmakers series at Anthology Film Archives. The annual CineKink "Bring It!" award, determined by audience vote during a presentation of excerpts showcasing current adult cinema, went to PSA (Urvashi) tied with Transcendent Bodies (Barbara Carrellas). The CineKink Tribute, recognizing extraordinary depictions of kink and sex-positivity in mainstream film and television, was presented to the feature film Blockers (Director Kay Cannon; Universal Pictures). Honorable mentions for the CineKink Tribute went to the television series The Bisexual (Desiree Akhavan and Rowan Riley; Hulu), Wanderlust (Nick Payne; Netflix), and the film Cam (Daniel Goldhaber; Netflix). Works eligible for consideration this year were those released or aired in the United States from January 1 until December 31, 2018. Making its 16th annual run April 3-7, 2019, CineKink NYC featured a specially selected program of films and videos that celebrate and explore a wide diversity of sexuality. Billing itself as "the kinky film festival," the event is dedicated to the recognition and encouragement of sex-positive and kink-friendly depictions in film and television. With offerings drawn from both Hollywood and beyond, works presented at CineKink NYC ranged from documentary to drama, comedy to experimental, mildly spicy to quite explicit—and everything in between. Sponsors of CineKink NYC/2019 included Bowery Bliss and njoy, along with Film Festival Secrets, TheFoodPornHub and Lustery, as well as Purple Passion, Riverdale Avenue Books and The Eulenspiegel Society. Community partners included Folsom Street East, Lesbian Sex Mafia and Pleasure Salon. Selections from CineKink NYC will be featured in a traveling version of the festival, slated to appear in various cities throughout the coming year. For more information, visit CineKink.com Pictured: Tommy Pistol and Ingrid Mouth from the festival entry Writing In Bed