In Which I Become An Indie Porn Icon

I’ve been blogging about the Feminist Porn Awards since they started in 2006 and, after a hiatus, they returned this year with different branding. The Toronto International Porn Festival took place from the 20th to the 23rd of April, offering up the same celebration of independent, diverse and feminist porn, just with a different name. Organizer Carlyle Jensen told Elle magazine that ‘”feminist,’ which was meant to be an inclusive label, could end up making the whole event feel like a club.” Ideally, the event is about the “democratization of porn.”

In any case, I had four films nominated this year, plus a website nomination for Bright Desire. The films were Handjobs, Immersed, See Me and Trinity and all but See Me screened at the Hot Docs cinema on Friday the 21st. That in itself was pretty cool as its the first time any of my films have screened in Toronto.

I attended the Feminist Porn Awards in 2013 and 2014 but I opted not to attend this year as I’m becoming a little weary of travelling for porn. Indeed, as the festival awards were being announced on the 23rd (Toronto time), I was getting on the barge to K’gari (Fraser Island) for a planned camping trip. Thus, I’ve been mostly offline for a week and unable to blog about the fact that I won two awards.

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Trinity: An Erotic Short Film – Trailer from Ms Naughty (Louise Lush) on Vimeo.

The first award was for Sexiest Short Film, which Trinity won. I am so very proud of that film and my three performers Parker Marx, Lina Bembe and Rooster. It’s a fun film and one of the hottest scenes we’ve filmed. And it makes it extra special that it’s now received several awards from EBX Briefs (Best Orgasm, Most Likely to Make You Want To Fuck), Cinekink (Honorable Mention) and now the TIPF.

I totally didn’t expect the second award (and didn’t know about it until days later). I was named Indie Porn Icon, with special mention given to the three films that screened. It’s amazing to receive this honour and I’m very grateful to TIPF for recognizing my work. I’ve been curating and making porn since 2000, doing my best to promote sex positive, female-friendly, ethical and feminist porn. This feels like a nod to that work and it’s nice to think I can add this accolade to my porn CV.

I looked up who has received the Indie Porn Icon/Pioneer awards in the past and they include Madison Young, Anna Span, Estelle Joseph, Julie Simone and Carlos Batts, so I’m in good company.

The other award winners are all truly talented and fabulous people and I’ve seen their work at Berlin. Indeed, many of the nominees and winners are familiar to the Berlin Porn Film Festival scene, something that shows just how much of an influence it has on fostering porn filmmaking.

I want to give a shout out to my fellow Australians Morgana Muses, Anna Brownfield and Gala Vanting who all won awards for their work. Also to Shine Louise Houston who won Movie of the Year for Snapshot which I think is well deserved.

And Bishop Black was named Heartthrob of the Year, a title that rings true for anyone who has met him or seen his work on screen; Bishop is a beautiful, delightful human being and I’ve loved working with him. I mean, just look at this:

Immersed – Trailer from Ms Naughty (Louise Lush) on Vimeo.

By the way, I had an excellent time camping. Saw a dugong, dingoes, dolphins, snakes, goannas and an awful lot of backpackers and hoons in 4WDs (possibly including us).

Where I was instead of snowy Toronto