Filmin has released the documentary The Queen of Porn, an x-ray of the figure of the New York counterculture Chelly Wilson, one of the leaders of the porn industry in the 70s, whose story can not be more different than what his profession may suggest. In less than an hour and a half, the film explores the life of this Greek, who was a lesbian but loved her husband and raised her children in Christianity despite being Jewish. A set of fascinating contradictions for a biography told by one of the blockbusters of one of her cinemas, director Valerie Kontakos, who knew her closely at age 16.

Kontakos explains to cineuropa Wilson's influence on his career, and how meeting her led him to film his biography. "Her independence, self-confidence and strength impacted me as a teenager, as it was very important to find a woman who could be alone and manage her life the way she wanted. Her talent was the ability to stand firm and feel good about herself." In the context of the sexual revolution of the 70s, the rise of feminism and gay pride, Wilson was not a visible head of the very conventional movement, and today could be valued with critical eyes by the most hegemonic factions, but her success perfectly defines the break with the conventions imposed even by new cultural dogmas.

The porn queen begins with her grandchildren remembering how their grandmother was the center of attention at every meeting. Combining home recordings, interviews with friends and family, and archival footage from New York, the film charts life and a career full of revelations, as he always kept a certain mystery around him and many secrets, even to those who were closest to him. Born in Thessaloniki in 1908, Chelly had a very religious Jewish upbringing until her father arranged a marriage that she abhorred, going so far as to express that every kiss of that man made her "want to kill him".

After having two children, she managed to arrange the divorce, but in 1939, when war broke out in Europe, she had to leave Greece without custody of her son, leaving her daughter Paulette to a family acquaintance she was completely unaware of and whom she made promise to protect her. He took the last boat that left Athens shortly before the German occupation of his hometown and arrived in New York with only $5 in his pocket, which he invested in a food stand in the Washington Heights neighborhood. Surviving in Manhattan by being identified as Sephardic was complicated even in the U.S. and soon Chelly became part of the Jewish expat community, making money selling peanuts and hot dogs on the street.

With money from the sale of street food she managed to import the patriotic film Greece on the March, and met the Jewish projectionist Rex Wilson, with whom she fell in love, among other things because he provided her with the brand of cigarettes that she missed. Thus, she managed to remake herself by adopting the surname that Rex himself had changed to Wilson to avoid discrimination, and she was reinforcing her support for the emigrants of her country by importing more and more Greek films, reaching the point of raising money to send the anti-Nazi troops. But as the Greek film market declined, Wilson saw another opportunity in a new emerging market: adult films.

Starting with small screenings, she soon saw possibilities and ended up owning several cinemas named after Greek gods such as Eros and Adonis, Venus or the Lido. When the 70s arrived, New York was broke, businesses and families were moving to suburban neighborhoods and crime was on the rise, but in the midst of that turmoil, the business and sex shops exploded in Times Square, becoming the source of income for the district until the arrival of Giuliani. Wilson had laid the necessary foundations to take advantage of that wave from the first position, going from projecting softcore to hardcore porn, earning so much money that he had to take the cash in shopping bags to his apartment.

Soon she also began to produce films herself and entered fully into the sordid environment of the area, playing poker with dubious characters, since throughout her career she crossed paths with the mafia and organized crime, because according to her granddaughter "she loved people who knew how to talk and do things". But he also enjoyed spending a lot of time with his family and expanding his options. Chelly opened a Greek restaurant called Mykonos and had his lover, singer Noni Kantaraki, perform there. She gradually stopped funding films and when authorities began cracking down on theaters in the 1990s, she slowly moved away from the adult business, but by then she was a pioneering entrepreneur who had broken taboos, becoming an unconventional matriarch.

Her story of survival is an example of empowerment, but it remains an alternative version of the cultural history of feminism and the rise of the gay liberation movement. Gay pornography was always present in his factory, making Adonis one of its epicenters at a time when its visibility was even more clandestine, however, the current association of the industry with exploitation offers another aspect to the figure of Wilson, which according to the director, is not a thing of today. "In the eyes of many people, she was a gloomy person and not very respectable. Some of those around him did not want to participate. This is happening even now, years after his death."

The porn queen does not follow the mechanisms of the classic biopic, but tries to convey Chelly's personality as Kontakos knew her. For this, he has also used some animation sequences that illustrate some of his exploits with sketches of Abhilasha Dewan and the objective of turning her into a living character, mixing some real audios in a hybrid that recovers the spirit of the underground comic that defined the other part of the culture in those years.

Worthy of Peter Bagge's cartooned biographies of pioneering libertarian women, the documentary is a portrait of a profile of a feminist, progressive, liberated and independent who personifies that in America the self-made entrepreneur does not understand preconceived ideological routes.

  • Filmin

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