Wow! We did it. We actually voted in every non-retail-pleasure category that we could vote for, and I have to thank my colleagues for pulling this off. It’s not like we did this in any organised manner like assigning categories so that everything would be covered. The most important thing was coming to a consensus since we had to rank every nominee in a given category.

I still think there are too many nominees in each category, but you have to keep everyone but the voters happy. Are there really more than 5 contenders in a given category that could or should win, and if there are, what does it say about about the indiscriminate evaluation or quality of what we are reviewing?

Each voter has their own criteria on how they judge the category. I generally defer to my colleagues in categories that I am clueless about or disinterested in. It would not be fair to the nominees if I tried to vote in every category, and it was crucial that we did have someone that knew their shit in specific categories. For example, Best Soundtrack: Would I listen to and enjoy this porn groove if it was outside a porno? The answer would frankly be no to every soundtrack that has ever been nominated. Same with Best Makeup: I appreciate the beauty that makeup brings when it is pertinent to the story, but most of the time the makeup I appreciate most is one where the viewer wouldn’t even notice.

Here is a sampling of our picks for the 2022 AVN Awards:

Movies

• Best Cinematography: Casey: A True Story (Adult Time)
• Best Featurette: Quarantine, Up To And Including Her Limits (Jules Jordan Video / Deeper)
• Best Foreign Production: BandB Family Business in Belgium (MariskaX)
• Best Gonzo/Compendium Movie or Limited Series: Glamcore (Wicked Pictures)
• Best Star Showcase: Jane Wilde is AGAPE (Evil Angel / Jonni Darkko Productions )
• Grand Reel: Love, Sex and Lawyers (Adam & Eve)

Like I mentioned last year, Jane Wilde is such a filthy performer, and Jonni Darkko, technically proficient cameraman and director, combine to make great showcases. Love, Sex, and Lawyers continues perhaps a series of movies by Will Ryder, unrelated except by title. This romantic comedy is lighthearted and funny, and I like watching Kenna James having sex.

Directing

• Best Directing – International Production: Anna de Ville & Trash Meister, Anna De Ville: Sex Addict (2021) (Harmony Films)
• Best Directing – Narrative Production: Will Ryder, Love, Sex and Lawyers (2021) (Adam & Eve)
• Best Directing – Non-Narrative Production: Angela White, Angela Loves Threesomes 3 (2021) (Girlfriends Films / AGW Entertainment B.V.)
• Best Directing – Banner/Network: Miles Long
• Director of the Year: Casey Calvert

Known mostly for his comedies and parodies, Will Ryder is a self-deprecating perfectionist or pessimist. His movies may not have the extensive budget of his competition, but Ryder writes the screenplays and squeezes every last take to get the shot that he wants for his vision, often to the exasperation of his production partner, Scott David.

Acting

• Best Actor – Featurette: Nathan Bronson, Scheme Pt. 1 (2021) (Missax.com / apovstory.com)
• Best Actress – Featurette: Melody Marks, My New Family Pt. 1 (2021) (Missax.com / AllHerLuv.com)
• Best Leading Actor: Seth Gamble, Gods and Sinners (2021) (Wicked Pictures)
• Best Leading Actress: Maitland Ward, Muse Season 2 (2021) (Pulse Distribution / Deeper)
• Best Supporting Actor: Manuel Ferrara, Muse Season 2 (2021) (Pulse Distribution / Deeper)
• Best Supporting Actress: Kira Noir, Casey: A True Story (2021) (Adult Time)
• Best Thespian: Casey Kisses, Casey: A True Story (2021) (Adult Time)

Big surprise that Maitland Ward, with extensive mainstream acting experience, would be the best actor in porn today. It is obvious that she enjoys the amount of control in her scenes both in and out of the storyline.

Performing

• Best Male Newcomer: David Lee
• Best New International Starlet: Lottie Magne
• Best New Starlet: Blake Blossom
• Female Performer of the Year: Gia Derza
• International Female Performer of the Year: Little Caprice
• International Male Performer of the Year: Alberto Blanco
• Lesbian Performer of the Year: Charlotte Stokely
• Male Performer of the Year: Tommy Pistol
• MILF Performer of the Year: Britney Amber
• Trans Performer of the Year: Casey Kisses

The IAFD staff like buxom blondes like Blake Blossom and Britney Amber, but we also like lithe redheads like Lottie Magne so we don’t have a particular preference with looks in picking performers. Performance over the voting period does matter, and it’s not just clicking off the checkboxes of acts that you can see on our website. It’s whether they consistently put out great scenes even while their co-stars and productions constantly change.

Reviewing the myriad scene categories confirmed that Gia Derza is an incredible performer. Her beautiful eyes accentuates every blowjob that she gives, and she throws every hole into sexual abandonment while moaning and squeaking into ecstasy. That’s my best Don Juan de Marko impression that I can do because I’ve ran out of words to describe just how great it is to watch her on screen.

[NOTE FROM JEFF: If I had to change anything about the awards process, it would be the voting site we have to use. It’s a simple list of nominees on one side and we drag them in order to the other side to cast our vote. Simple enough task, but the source list is unsorted, so it’s harder than necessary to find Angela White’s name when it’s buried somewhere in the bottom third of the list instead of at the top where the A’s should be sorted. (I do concede that perhaps there’s a reason for the random ordering in the source list – random ordering might keep the list free from unconscious bias. By way of example, I had a client who named their company so it started with an AB so they’d be at the top of every list of sponsors they were listed in.)

We vote via spreadsheet and we average out our scores so a polarizing performer might end up in the middle of the pack instead of at either extreme. This year I didn’t watch nearly as much as I had in the past, so my role was mostly as tiebreaker – visiting those specific scenes/performers and then voting between those. The ties were almost exclusively middle-of-the-pack; I don’t think I had to break any win/place/show ties….]