CineKink Announces Award Winners for 2023 Festival

NEW YORK—CineKink has announced awards in a concluding celebration for the 2023 edition of its festival. Marking the festival’s first in-person screenings since before the pandemic, with several COVID precautions in place, CineKink will also make much of its 2023 line-up available online, with virtual offerings to take place in late September. “I’m so pleased that we were able to finally come together again for our 20th anniversary,” said Lisa Vandever, co-founder and director of CineKink. “And grateful that we were able to present such a stellar assortment of works to celebrate this milestone. Congratulations and thanks are in order, not just to our award-winning filmmakers, but to all of them!"Audience Choice Awards for CineKink 2023 were presented to In a Good Way (directors Zachary Gutierrez and Joshua LaBure) for Best Narrative Feature, to This Is Where I Get Off (director Todd Verow) for Best Experimental Feature, and Rough Edges (director Charles Lyons) for Honorable Mention. The annual CineKink "Bring It!" award, determined by audience vote during a showcase of current adult cinema, went to Bang Click Bang, directed by Paulita Pappel and Rod Wyler.In the shorts competition, juried festival awards went to "Make Me a King" (Sofie Olins), to "Down for Dee" (Ximena Alvarez) and "Good Girl" (Katia Koziara) in a tie for Best Comedy Short, to "Krush The Wrestler" (Alex Megaro) and "More Than a Feeling" (Dave Quantic) in a tie for Best Documentary Short, and to "State of Mind" (Donald C. Shorter Jr.) for Best Experimental Short.  Honorable Best Mention awards were presented to "Oral History" (Vaughn Trudeau), "Our Language is Chaos" (Cory Byam), and Safe Word (Christopher Cunetto). Determining the shorts awards, CineKink jurors this year included Thor Stockman, creator of The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous: S/M at the Movies; Viviane Tang, co-founder of The Pleasure Salon; and Bill Woods, a festival programmer and curator of the New Filmmakers series at Anthology Film Archives.Sponsors and partners of CineKink NYC 2023 include njoy, Film Festival Secrets, Lucky and Robel Films. In addition to encore screenings scheduled to take place virtually Sept. 22 to Oct. 1, selections from CineKink 2023 will be featured in a traveling version of the festival, slated to appear in various cities throughout the next year. For more information on this year's festival line-up and upcoming events, visit the CineKink website.