Sex: The Annabel Chong Story
| Sex: The Annabel Chong Story | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Gough Lewis |
| Written by | Gough Lewis |
| Produced by | Gough Lewis, Kelly Morris & Peter Carr |
| Cinematography | Gough Lewis |
| Edited by | Kelly Morris |
Release date |
|
Running time | 1 hour and 27 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
Sex: The Annabel Chong Story is a 1999 documentary film directed, filmed, and produced by Canada-based producer Gough Lewis, edited by co-creator Kelly Morris,[1] and produced by Peter Carr.
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.[2]
After the film's release, Quek criticised Lewis for misconstruing multiple events in the film and portraying events in a "misleading" way.[3]
Synopsis[edit]
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.[4]
The documentary reveals to the viewers that she was gang raped as a student living in London and describes her many complex emotional issues, including signs of depression, self-harm,[4] 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.[4]
Response[edit]
The documentary became a hit when it was released at the Sundance Film Festival, nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.[5]
The film's North American release was halted or minimized as a result of a court case in the Superior Court of Canada instigated by David Whitten, a B-movie distributor.[6]
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."
References[edit]
- ^ "Kelly A. Morris". IMDb. Retrieved 21 November 2016.
- ^ "Sex sobers in controversial Sundance documentary". CNN. February 10, 1999. Retrieved 21 November 2016.
- ^ McDougall, AJ (2020). "What Happened to Annabel Chong?". www.vice.com. Vice Media. Retrieved 2021-03-18.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b c "Sex: The Annabel Chong Story (review)". flickfilosopher.com. 13 February 2000. Retrieved 21 November 2016.
- ^ "Sex: The Annabel Chong Story". Top Documentary Films. Retrieved 2014-06-06.
- ^ Moviemaker.com Straight From the Horse's Mouth: How To Avoid Distribution Hell by Keith Bearden Archived 2006-03-24 at the Wayback Machine