The awards, hosted by adult boutique retailer Good For Her, honor adult filmmakers whose work offers a fresh perspective on the sexual expression of women and other under-represented groups in adult. The winners will be celebrated April 8-9 in Toronto.
Alison Lee, the event’s organizer, told XBIZ that while unfortunately there were no submissions from their homeland of Canada, submissions were received from all over the world.
“We had lots of submissions from the U.S., and also from France, Sweden, United Kingdom, Spain, New Zealand, Australia, The Netherlands,” Lee said. “As far as submissions go, I’m really excited about the number of filmmakers who are submitting work to the Feminist Porn Awards for the first time.”
She added that she’s looking forward to checking out the work of up and coming filmmakers like Anna Brownfield from Australia, Vena Virago, Astrid Glitter as well as filmmakers who have already submitted work in year’s past, like Tristan Taormino, Shine Louise Houston, Courtney Trouble and Nica Noelle, among others.
This year the Feminist Porn Awards is introducing a new special category: The Emerging Filmmaker Award. The award will honor emerging talent in the field of feminist porn production by offering monetary scholarship to an individual who is breaking boundaries, creating sexy feminist porn and who is committed to the representation of women and alternative sexualities in erotic media.
“It’s very important for us to acknowledge the economic hurdles that many would-be filmmakers face when trying to make and promote their movies,” Lee said. “This award, while by no means a cure, is a help in making it possible for a new filmmaker to make the jump between wanting to make a film and actually being able to complete it.”
The award is given in partnership with Good Releasing and is intended for the completion of a film project to be released for film screening and/or DVD distribution in 2010-2011. Additionally, it is intended for individuals working on their first erotic film project(s) only.
Another of the awards’ novelty is the choice to include a civilian in the Feminist Porn Awards Jury Committee. A contest, which ended Feb. 15, will choose one winner to join the jury in judging nominees.
“We want to be sure to include a variety of voices in the decision making process, and to be able to look at these films from multiple points of view,” Lee said. “The jury member contest was intended as a way to get ‘porn enthusiasts’ that may not have ‘official’ credentials, but are interested in watching and offering their opinions on great feminist porn.
“The rest of the jury is already organized, and includes a documentary filmmaker, an academic who studies porn and teaches porn studies, as well as myself and CoCo La Crème — Good For Her’s resident porn reviewer.”
The contest’s winner also gets two VIP tickets to the Feminist Porn Awards and a $100 gift certificate to Good For Her, among other prizes.
The two-day event kicks off April 8 with the event Provocative.Public.Porn: The Year’s Best in Feminist Film, which will include a screening of selected clips and a roundtable discussion with directors and performers, including Tristan Taormino and Shine Louis Houston, among others.
