New Jersey resident Lisa Vandever has been the sole driving force behind CineKink, "the really alternative film festival," since she founded it in 2003. That slogan may sound like hype, but CineKink really has lived up to it. For one thing, no matter what you hear about the parties at Sundance, you can guarantee that none of the official ones are like Afterglow—the play party that finishes off the main festival in New York every year. But that aside, the whole purpose of CineKink sets it apart from other film festivals. Whereas sex seems to make even many queer film festivals squeamish, Vandever has a knack for compiling programs that traverse the spectrum from vanilla to the most obscure varieties of kink, from art-school documentaries to outright porn.
CineKink proper happens every February in New York City, but when Vandever wraps up on the last night in the East Village's Anthology Film Archives, her work has really only begun. After that, she takes the show on the road, screening selections from the main festival in cities across the country and across the world. CineKink has gone to Chicago, Portland, Seattle, British Columbia, Minneapolis, Cleveland, and most recently, even to Berlin. This week, it's San Francisco's turn. From Thursday to Saturday, CineKink will be at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, showing a different program of films every night. CarnalNation asked Dusty Horn to talk to Vandever about her visions of sexuality and film.
First of all, if you're comfortable sharing, what personal investment do you have in representing kink in cinema? What is your experience in pornography and the sex industry or BDSM?
My original interest grew out of my involvement in the kink/BDSM communities. Combined with my background in film and television, I was very interested in how kink was portrayed onscreen and wanted to create a showcase for works that celebrated kink and sexuality—or at least brought a respectful level of discourse to the subject.
You've been doing CineKink since 2003. What inspired you to start it, and what's different about the films that you're seeing now as opposed to when you started?
Along with my CineKink co-founder, Michael Ashack, I'd been programming for the New York S/M Film Festival, which TES (The Eulenspiegel Society) ran from 2000 to 2002, and found that I'd really stumbled onto a perfect passion, bringing together my loves for both film and for sex. Personally, my interests were expanding beyond the S/M world and professionally I'd become very disillusioned with indie film development—and CineKink became something for me to pour myself into. I'd also been working with the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom—and continue doing occasional entertainment media updates for them, alerting the community to mainstream depictions of alternative sexuality—and wanted to create something that might encourage more positive portrayals. In the seven years I've been doing CineKink, I've seen a definite jump in sex-positive possibilities in both the mainstream and indie worlds—as well as a huge leap in the quality of films we're considering for the festival. Each year the bar goes a little higher!
What have been some of the biggest challenges in doing a kinky film festival?
There are lots of logistical concerns that come up, with a primary issue being a venue for screenings. Many theaters are squeamish about sex, whether they've got an existing audience they're afraid to offend or they worry about what type of rain-coated loners might attend. When we started out, Anthology Film Archives was the only place in NYC that would have us—and we still have problems finding suitable venues for the CineKink tour. Our biggest challenge, though, is funding. We pretty much dismissed the thought of any grants, right from the start. And while all festivals are struggling to find sponsors in this economy, we've always been a little too out there for corporate funders—and then perhaps not porny enough for most adult sponsors. So we've been looking at a rather narrow field of possibilities, many of them sex-positive start-ups like ourselves, who support us when they can—but who are also experiencing boot-strap growing pains. Compared to non-kinky film festivals, we're likely much more reliant on ticket sales and donations from our audience—so their support is key.
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