NEW YORK — The CineKink Awards winners were announced on Aug. 6, in a celebration concluding the festival's 20th anniversary event, CineKink NYC 2023.
The festival will also make much of its 2023 lineup available online, with virtual offerings to premiere in late September.
The event marked the festival’s first in-person screenings since before the pandemic, and several COVID precautions remained in place.
CineKink co-founder and director Lisa Vandever said, “I’m so pleased that we were able to finally come together again for our 20th anniversary. 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, and to “This Is Where I Get Off” (director Todd Verow) for Best Experimental Feature. “Rough Edges” (director Charles Lyons) received an 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), “Down For Dee” (Ximena Alvarez) and “Good Girl” (Katia Koziara) in a tie for Best Comedy Short; “Krush The Wrestler” (Alex Megaro) and “More Than A Feeling” (Dave Quantic), which tied for Best Documentary Short, and “State of Mind” (Donald C. Shorter Jr.) for Best Experimental Short.
Also receiving honorable mentions were “Oral History” (Vaughn Trudeau), “Our Language is Chaos” (Cory Byam) and “Safe Word” (Christopher Cunetto).
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 film festival programmer and curator of the New Filmmakers series at Anthology Film Archives.
Sponsors and partners of CineKink NYC/2023 included NJOY, along with Film Festival Secrets, Lucky and Robel Films.
In addition to encore screenings scheduled to stream Sept. 22-Oct. 1, selections from CineKink 2023 will be featured in a traveling edition of the festival, slated to take place in various cities throughout the coming year.
For more information on this year's festival lineup and upcoming events, visit CineKink.com.
