Sex: The Annabel Chong Story

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Sex: The Annabel Chong Story
Sex annabel chong story.jpg
DVD cover
Directed byGough Lewis
Written byKelly Morris
Produced by
  • Gough Lewis
  • Hugh F. Curry
Starring Grace Quek
Cinematography
  • Gough Lewis
  • James Michaels
  • Kelly Morris
  • Tony Morrone
Edited byKelly Morris
Production
companies
  • Coffee House Films
  • Greycat Releasing
  • Omni International
Distributed by Strand Releasing
Release dates
  • January 1999 (1999-01)(Sundance)
  • February 11, 2000 (2000-02-11)
Running time
87 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$233,076

Sex: The Annabel Chong Story is a 1999 American documentary film directed, filmed and produced by Canada-based producer Gough Lewis, edited by co-creator Kelly Morris, and produced by Peter Carr.

Contents

The film profiles pornographic film actor Grace Quek, a.k.a. Annabel Chong, then a gender studies student at the University of Southern California, famous for setting a gang bang record in January 1995. A video of the event was released under the title The World's Biggest Gang Bang . [1]

After release, Quek criticised Lewis for misconstruing multiple events and portraying events in a "misleading" way, such as claiming to have 'returned' to the industry after going to Singapore or the fact that producer Lewis self-harmed off-camera. [2]

Synopsis

The documentary explores Quek's experiences, presenting her life as a student in Los Angeles, California and London; her native Singapore; and in the porn industry. It focuses on her reasons for working in porn, and her relationship with friends and family. [3]

The documentary reveals that Quek was gang raped as a student living in London and describes her many complex emotional issues, including signs of depression, self-harm [3] and substance abuse. The film also includes footage of a painful conversation in Singapore between Annabel and her mother, who, until then, didn't know about her daughter's porn career. [3]

Response

The documentary became a hit when it was released at the Sundance Film Festival, nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. [4]

North American distribution was halted or minimized as a result of a court case in the Superior Court of Canada, as instigated by David Whitten, a B-movie distributor. [5]

In The Guardian , Jonathan Romney (2000) wrote, "Quek's refusal to cohere as a subject is contingent on the fact that there's apparently no one looking at her: director Lewis is curiously absent, as either a character or as an invisible shaping intelligence. But he apparently was a character in her story: in interviews, Quek has denounced him for failing to reveal that he was her lover for a year during the making of Sex, something the film never even implies. That omission contributes to making the film incomplete, if not actually dishonest." [6]

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References

  1. "Sex sobers in controversial Sundance documentary". CNN. February 10, 1999. Archived from the original on 29 January 2017. Retrieved 21 November 2016.
  2. McDougall, AJ (2020). "What Happened to Annabel Chong?". www.vice.com. Vice Media. Archived from the original on 2020-11-23. Retrieved 2021-03-18.
  3. 1 2 3 "Sex: The Annabel Chong Story (review)". flickfilosopher.com. 13 February 2000. Archived from the original on 15 December 2007. Retrieved 21 November 2016.
  4. "Sex: The Annabel Chong Story". Top Documentary Films. Archived from the original on 2014-06-07. Retrieved 2014-06-06.
  5. Moviemaker.com Straight From the Horse's Mouth: How To Avoid Distribution Hell by Keith Bearden Archived 2006-03-24 at the Wayback Machine
  6. Romney, Jonathan (26 April 2000). "Naked, but not revealed". The Guardian . Archived from the original on 13 September 2024. Retrieved 15 April 2018.