Queen of the Deuce is a documentary film that tells the story of Chelly Wilson, a Jewish immigrant from Greece, who built a porn cinema empire in New York City from the 1960s to the 1980s. The documentary, which had many Canadian crew members, premiered in November 2022 at DOC NYC and recently screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF) in June. After the festival, I had the opportunity to interview director Valerie Kontakos over Zoom about her experience making the film.
Valerie, it’s so great to speak with you! I’m a programmer at the TJFF, and one of the films the programming team was most excited about this year was yours. It sheds light on the fascinating cultural history of New York during the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. How did you learn about Chelly Wilson and her empire and how did you come to make this film?
I was familiar with Chelly because my mom knew her—my mom’s brother had been a producer of Greek family films. He used to send Chelly films to show in New York. When my mom went to New York around the late ’50s and early ’60s, she met Chelly. They hit it off and became very good friends. As I was growing up, I always heard about Chelly and Rex [Chelly’s husband]. They would always come visit us. When I was 15 or 16 years old, I decided I wanted to get a job and I told my mom I was going to look for one. But my mom said, “Give me a couple of days.” She spoke to Chelly, who then hired me [to work] on Sundays, when her theatre would be showing Greek films. The rest of the week, the theatres would be showing gay porn! But Sunday was Greek films day. I always admired Chelly, she was a positive persona in my adolescence. It felt obvious to me that I was going to do something about her, and since my field is documentary, it was just a matter of time.
What was the first step in making the film? How did you get Chelly’s family on screen?
The first thing I had to do was get to know her family, and get them on board. Even though I knew of Paulette and Bondi [two of Chelly’s children], I had never met them. I had to tell them my idea and convince them to trust me, and trust that I wasn’t going to do something sensational. I had to explain that I was sincerely interested in Chelly the person. And yes, she had all these things going on but ultimately it was the substance of her character that I wanted to pursue. I had met Danny [Chelly’s son] awhile back, but he wasn’t too keen on being filmed. We ultimately decided if we focused on his story, bringing another subplot would complicate things too much and it wouldn’t be about Chelly.
I am guessing that even though you were familiar with Chelly and her work, you had to do a lot of research when working on this project. How long was the research process?
It was a lot of work. There was a lot of research that we did for the war years—one side of it was the United States and the other was about what was going on with the Greek diaspora in the ’40s and ’50s, especially during the war. Chelly had been very involved in helping other Greeks because Greece went through a really difficult time after the war. We did a lot of research on theatres she owned and on the porn industry. There were segments we had to cut out of the film as originally, the runtime was much longer. We had a whole section on what was happening in New York during the AIDS epidemic because her theatres were so much a part of the gay community at the time. For the most part, I was able to do what I wanted and what I set out to do. And the film was a pleasure to work on.
You've used animation to bring Chelly to life. Was it challenging to make a documentary where the subject wasn’t alive and therefore couldn’t be interviewed? Is that how you came to the decision to incorporate animation?
I had that idea to have animation from the beginning because the photos and archival footage wasn’t going to cut it. Originally, we didn’t have the money for it because animation can be quite expensive. But Ed Barreveld, the Canadian producer, received a grant that we weren’t expecting. He asked what I wanted to do with the money and so my dream came true. I’m so happy with the animation, with Abby’s work [Abhilasha Dewan, lead animator on the film]. I think she did a fantastic job with Chelly. I saw Abby’s student film first and said, “that’s the person”. In terms of her first sketches of Chelly, she got it. In Greek the word we would use is magya—it means cool and streetwise savvy. Chelly was almost like a gangster. Abby got all the nuances of her character.
As well as screening at TJFF, the film played at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival and first premiered at DOC NYC. How have audiences reacted to the film so far? I imagine New York was an important screening.
It was, and the reception has been good. I have a distributor in Israel and a distributor in the U.S. The important thing for me is just being in the audience when people are watching the film and seeing when they giggle or laugh, when there’s silence, when you hear a sigh, when they're contemplating certain things. It’s about experiencing how other people are experiencing the film. It gives me a lot of pleasure that I did something that touches and speaks to many.
It's great when a documentary can have people laughing as much as they did. It was the same reaction during the TJFF screening.
It’s Chelly! That’s what I always say. It has nothing to do with me. Everyone [the subjects of the documentary] still had their sense of humour even after all that time, and that’s something. You need to laugh in order to get through life, especially that life. Canadian audiences can watch the documentary on the Documentary Channel in July, and on CBC Gem in the new year.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Queen of the Deuce is a documentary film that tells the story of Chelly Wilson, a Jewish immigrant from Greece, who built a porn cinema empire in New York City from the 1960s to the 1980s. The documentary, which had many Canadian crew members, premiered in November 2022 at DOC NYC and recently screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF) in June. After the festival, I had the opportunity to interview director Valerie Kontakos over Zoom about her experience making the film.
Valerie, it’s so great to speak with you! I’m a programmer at the TJFF, and one of the films the programming team was most excited about this year was yours. It sheds light on the fascinating cultural history of New York during the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. How did you learn about Chelly Wilson and her empire and how did you come to make this film?
I was familiar with Chelly because my mom knew her—my mom’s brother had been a producer of Greek family films. He used to send Chelly films to show in New York. When my mom went to New York around the late ’50s and early ’60s, she met Chelly. They hit it off and became very good friends. As I was growing up, I always heard about Chelly and Rex [Chelly’s husband]. They would always come visit us. When I was 15 or 16 years old, I decided I wanted to get a job and I told my mom I was going to look for one. But my mom said, “Give me a couple of days.” She spoke to Chelly, who then hired me [to work] on Sundays, when her theatre would be showing Greek films. The rest of the week, the theatres would be showing gay porn! But Sunday was Greek films day. I always admired Chelly, she was a positive persona in my adolescence. It felt obvious to me that I was going to do something about her, and since my field is documentary, it was just a matter of time.
What was the first step in making the film? How did you get Chelly’s family on screen?
The first thing I had to do was get to know her family, and get them on board. Even though I knew of Paulette and Bondi [two of Chelly’s children], I had never met them. I had to tell them my idea and convince them to trust me, and trust that I wasn’t going to do something sensational. I had to explain that I was sincerely interested in Chelly the person. And yes, she had all these things going on but ultimately it was the substance of her character that I wanted to pursue. I had met Danny [Chelly’s son] awhile back, but he wasn’t too keen on being filmed. We ultimately decided if we focused on his story, bringing another subplot would complicate things too much and it wouldn’t be about Chelly.
I am guessing that even though you were familiar with Chelly and her work, you had to do a lot of research when working on this project. How long was the research process?
It was a lot of work. There was a lot of research that we did for the war years—one side of it was the United States and the other was about what was going on with the Greek diaspora in the ’40s and ’50s, especially during the war. Chelly had been very involved in helping other Greeks because Greece went through a really difficult time after the war. We did a lot of research on theatres she owned and on the porn industry. There were segments we had to cut out of the film as originally, the runtime was much longer. We had a whole section on what was happening in New York during the AIDS epidemic because her theatres were so much a part of the gay community at the time. For the most part, I was able to do what I wanted and what I set out to do. And the film was a pleasure to work on.
You've used animation to bring Chelly to life. Was it challenging to make a documentary where the subject wasn’t alive and therefore couldn’t be interviewed? Is that how you came to the decision to incorporate animation?
I had that idea to have animation from the beginning because the photos and archival footage wasn’t going to cut it. Originally, we didn’t have the money for it because animation can be quite expensive. But Ed Barreveld, the Canadian producer, received a grant that we weren’t expecting. He asked what I wanted to do with the money and so my dream came true. I’m so happy with the animation, with Abby’s work [Abhilasha Dewan, lead animator on the film]. I think she did a fantastic job with Chelly. I saw Abby’s student film first and said, “that’s the person”. In terms of her first sketches of Chelly, she got it. In Greek the word we would use is magya—it means cool and streetwise savvy. Chelly was almost like a gangster. Abby got all the nuances of her character.
As well as screening at TJFF, the film played at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival and first premiered at DOC NYC. How have audiences reacted to the film so far? I imagine New York was an important screening.
It was, and the reception has been good. I have a distributor in Israel and a distributor in the U.S. The important thing for me is just being in the audience when people are watching the film and seeing when they giggle or laugh, when there’s silence, when you hear a sigh, when they're contemplating certain things. It’s about experiencing how other people are experiencing the film. It gives me a lot of pleasure that I did something that touches and speaks to many.
It's great when a documentary can have people laughing as much as they did. It was the same reaction during the TJFF screening.
It’s Chelly! That’s what I always say. It has nothing to do with me. Everyone [the subjects of the documentary] still had their sense of humour even after all that time, and that’s something. You need to laugh in order to get through life, especially that life. Canadian audiences can watch the documentary on the Documentary Channel in July, and on CBC Gem in the new year.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.