| All About Anna | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Jessica Nilsson |
| Produced by | Marcella Lindstad Claus Sørensen (executive) Peter Aalbæk Jensen (executive) Nicolas Barbano (executive) |
| Written by | Anya Aims Loretta Fabiana |
| Starring | Gry Bay Mark Stevens Eileen Daly Ovidie |
| Music by | M. Maurice Hawkesworth |
| Cinematography | Claus Lykke |
| Editing by | Martin Bernfeld |
| Distributed by | Team Video Plus (Denmark) Wicked Pictures (U.S.) |
| Release date(s) | 24 November 2005 (Denmark) 18 January 2007 (US) |
| Running time | 91 minutes |
| Country | Denmark |
| Language | English |
All About Anna is a Danish pornographic film released in 2005, directed by Jessica Nilsson and starring Gry Bay and Mark Stevens. The film is explicit in its exploration of sexual relationships. It emphasizes character development and avoids closeup shots of genital/genital contact.
It is a co-production between Innocent Pictures and Lars von Trier's Zentropa Productions, and is the third of Zentropa's sex films for women, following Constance (1998) and Pink Prison (1999). All three films were based on the Puzzy Power Manifesto developed by Zentropa in 1997.
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All About Anna tells the story of Anna (Gry Bay), a single woman who seeks to maintain an active sex life while staying clear of emotional involvement, after having been jilted by the love of her life, Johan (Mark Stevens). She has a relationship with Frank (Thomas Raft), but refuses to let him move in with her. When Johan shows up again after five years absence, she starts wondering how much longer she can maintain her emotional independence, and if that is what she wants. She has sex with him, loses his telephone number and can not contact him. She ends her affair with Frank and when she is offered a job as costume designer in a French theatre, she decides to move to Paris. She leaves her flat to her flat-mate Camilla (Eileen Daly) who asks her permission to rent out the now empty room to a friend of hers. This friend turns out to be Johan and Anna meets him as she leaves for Paris, where the local stage actors Pierre (Morten Schelbech) and Sophie (Ovidie) offer new amorous temptations, but she worries about Johan finding a new love. In the end she returns to Copenhagen and, after mistakenly thinking that Johan has been unfaithful to her, she faces her fears of commitment and is reunited with Johan.
According to publicity for the film, "without the sex scenes, the film’s drama would fall apart. This was a particular challenge to the film’s cast, who had to cope with the traditional social and human traumas associated with having real sex in front of a camera. Fortunately the film’s actors and actresses managed to extend their dramatic performances way beyond the norm and truly managed to push the envelope, achieving new means of dramatic expression. The sex scenes were carefully planned and rehearsed prior to shooting, allowing the actors to stay in character through every embrace and caress."[1]
The film was originally released in November 2005 on a Scandinavian 3-disc DVD. This was the first Danish pornographic film to be released with subtitles for the hearing-impaired, which was enthusiastically received by the hard-of-hearing community.[2][3]
The successful US theatrical premiere was held on January 18, 2007, in Chicago, Illinois.
The two-disc US DVD was released on January 29, 2008.
All About Anna was officially selected for Zurich Film Festival and Io Isabella International Film Week.
It was included in the series Cinematic Sexualities in the 21st Century, arranged by Doc Films in collaboration with The University of Chicago Film Studies Center.
In 2006 it was nominated for two EroticLine Awards in the categories Best International Newcomer (Gry Bay) and Best International Actor (Mark Stevens).
In 2007 it won three Scandinavian Adult Awards, including Best Scandinavian Couples Film, Best Scandinavian Actor (Thomas Raft) and Best Selling Scandinavian Star of 2006 (Gry Bay).
In September 2007, Germany's biggest weekly magazine Stern identified women's pornography as one of 50 trends, placed an image from All About Anna on the cover of its cultural supplement Stern Journal, and commented:
"Women too like to see other people having sex. What they don't like is the endless close-ups of hammering bodyparts without a story. Lars von Trier is the first to have realised this and produced valuable quality porn films for women."
— Stern #40, 27.9.2007[4]
In her book Secrets of porn star sex (Infinite Ideas, 2007), British author Marcelle Perks includes a chapter on female-friendly porn, in which she concludes: "Rather than being intimidated by porn, do a bit of research and find something that you can have fun with. An ideal introduction movie is the hit film All About Anna, a mainstream film that features real sex".
In April 2008, U.S. trade journal AVN gave the film an AAAAA Editor's Choice Review. It was one of only four films to receive the journal's highest rating that month. Critic Jared Rutter wrote:
"It is beautifully crafted and constantly entertaining. [...] The question is, why can't mainstream American films move on up to this grown-up degree of sexual explicitness? Retailing: This title can be sold as either mainstream or adult–the best of both worlds."
— Jared Rutter, AVN Magazine, April 2008[5]
In May 2008, French trade journal Hot Video #208 placed All About Anna highest in the category "la crème du porno feminine".[6]
In May 2008, Danish lifestyle magazine Woman #112 had asked a group of female readers to rate a selection of erotic product, including books, websites, CDs etc. The highest score went to All About Anna.[7]
In June 2008, the trade journal AVN Europe gave the film an 8 out of 10 rating, and wrote:
"A good couples' flick for those who like a nice storyline. [...] Visually and musically, the movie is also well made and the packaging includes two extra discs with additional material such as an alternative version, outtakes and bloopers. So all in all, a good movie for couples and perhaps, dare I say it, a good movie for guys wanting to turn their wife/girlfriend on to saucy DVD pleasures."
— Angel Swede, AVN Europe, June 2008[8]
In November 2008, the film was nominated for four AVN Awards in the following categories:[9]
This among other things marked the first Best Foreign Feature AVN Award nomination for an Academy Award-nominated company.[10]
In January 2009, All About Anna ranked #2 on a top-ten of female-friendly sex films published on the Website of Europe's biggest newspaper, Bild. The list also included Constance and Pink Prison.[11]
In September 2009, it was released theatrically in the UK as a double bill with Lars von Trier's Antichrist (also a Zentropa-film with sexually explicit images).[12]
The film exists in at least three versions. The original Scandinavian DVD release contains both the Producer's Cut and the Director's Cut. A Softcore Version with no explicit sexual footage has also been released (in Germany).