All About Anna
Encyclopedia
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.
), 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.
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.
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:
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:
In May 2008, French trade journal Hot Video #208 placed All About Anna highest in the category "la crème du porno feminine".
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.
In June 2008, the trade journal AVN Europe gave the film an 8 out of 10 rating, and wrote:
In November 2008, the film was nominated for four AVN Awards in the following categories:
This among other things marked the first Best Foreign Feature AVN Award nomination for an Academy Award-nominated company.
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
.
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).
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
pornographic film released in 2005, directed by Jessica Nilsson
Jessica Nilsson
Jessica Nilsson is a Swedish director based in Denmark; she is perhaps best known for the feature film All About Anna .She studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and later graduated from the Danish Film School....
and starring Gry Bay
Gry Bay
Gry Wernberg Bay is a Danish actress and singer. Gry Bay is best known for her sexually provocative starring role in the feature film All About Anna .- Biography :...
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
Innocent Pictures
Innocent Pictures ApS is a Danish independent film company founded in 2001, originally as a subsidiary of Lars von Trier's film company Zentropa.Innocent pictures best known production is the erotic feature film All About Anna , starring Gry Bay....
and Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier is a Danish film director and screenwriter. He is closely associated with the Dogme 95 collective, although his own films have taken a variety of different approaches, and have frequently received strongly divided critical opinion....
's Zentropa Productions
Zentropa
Europa is a film directed by Lars von Trier. Released in 1991, it is von Trier's third theatrical feature film and is the final film in the Europa trilogy....
, and is the third of Zentropa's sex films for women, following Constance
Constance (1998 film)
Constance is an erotic film for women, directed by Knud Vesterskov and produced by Puzzy Power, a division of Lars von Trier's film company Zentropa...
(1998) and Pink Prison
Pink Prison
Pink Prison is an erotic film for women, directed by Lisbeth Lynghøft and produced by Puzzy Power, a division of Lars von Trier's film company Zentropa....
(1999). All three films were based on the Puzzy Power Manifesto developed by Zentropa in 1997.
Plot
All About Anna tells the story of Anna (Gry BayGry Bay
Gry Wernberg Bay is a Danish actress and singer. Gry Bay is best known for her sexually provocative starring role in the feature film All About Anna .- Biography :...
), 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
Eileen Daly
Eileen Daly is an English actress, film producer, writer, model, poet and singer/songwriter. She is also a well-known contemporary scream queen starring in numerous cult movies.-Early life:...
) 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
Ovidie
Ovidie is a French pornographic actress.- Overview :Ovidie was born in Lille, France. She refuses to give her real name to the press. Her parents are liberals from "a good family background" who were farmers in 2003. She was married; her husband left a teaching position at the University of...
) 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.
Release, distribution and critical reception
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."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.
The successful US theatrical premiere was held on January 18, 2007, in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
.
The two-disc US DVD was released on January 29, 2008.
All About Anna was officially selected for Zurich Film Festival
Zurich Film Festival
The Zurich Film Festival ' is an important international film festival, held annually in Zurich, Switzerland. A stated objective of the festival is to discover and support young, aspiring filmmakers and to offer the industry, audiences, the press and a broader public an exciting cinema experience...
and Io Isabella International Film Week
Io Isabella International Film Week
is the first film festival in the south of Italy, and the second in Italy, devoted to Women and Documentary. It spotlights the work by and about women and Creative Documentary...
.
It was included in the series Cinematic Sexualities in the 21st Century, arranged by Doc Films
Doc Films
The Documentary Film Group, better known as Doc Films, is a student-operated film society at the University of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is—according to a 2007 Chicago Tribune article—"the longest-running collegiate film society in the country" and may be the oldest film society of any...
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
Gry Bay
Gry Wernberg Bay is a Danish actress and singer. Gry Bay is best known for her sexually provocative starring role in the feature film All About Anna .- Biography :...
) 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
Gry Bay
Gry Wernberg Bay is a Danish actress and singer. Gry Bay is best known for her sexually provocative starring role in the feature film All About Anna .- Biography :...
).
In September 2007, Germany's biggest weekly magazine Stern
Stern (magazine)
Stern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...
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:
In her book Secrets of porn star sex (Infinite Ideas, 2007), British author Marcelle Perks
Marcelle Perks
Marcelle Perks is a British author and journalist presently living in Germany.She has specialized in writing sexually-themed guide books, but also writes short stories....
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
AVN (magazine)
Adult Video News is an American trade journal that covers the adult video industry. The New York Times notes that AVN is to pornographic films what Billboard is to records...
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:
In May 2008, French trade journal Hot Video #208 placed All About Anna highest in the category "la crème du porno feminine".
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.
In June 2008, the trade journal AVN Europe gave the film an 8 out of 10 rating, and wrote:
In November 2008, the film was nominated for four AVN Awards in the following categories:
- Best Foreign Feature
- Best Music Soundtrack
- Best Packaging
- Best On-Line Marketing Campaign – Individual Project (AllAboutAnna.com)
This among other things marked the first Best Foreign Feature AVN Award nomination for an Academy Award-nominated company.
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
Constance (1998 film)
Constance is an erotic film for women, directed by Knud Vesterskov and produced by Puzzy Power, a division of Lars von Trier's film company Zentropa...
and Pink Prison
Pink Prison
Pink Prison is an erotic film for women, directed by Lisbeth Lynghøft and produced by Puzzy Power, a division of Lars von Trier's film company Zentropa....
.
In September 2009, it was released theatrically in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
as a double bill with Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier is a Danish film director and screenwriter. He is closely associated with the Dogme 95 collective, although his own films have taken a variety of different approaches, and have frequently received strongly divided critical opinion....
's Antichrist
Antichrist (film)
Antichrist is a 2009 arthouse-horror film written and directed by Lars von Trier, starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. It follows horror film conventions and tells the story of a couple who, after the death of their child, retreat to a cabin in the woods where the man experiences strange...
(also a Zentropa
Zentropa
Europa is a film directed by Lars von Trier. Released in 1991, it is von Trier's third theatrical feature film and is the final film in the Europa trilogy....
-film with sexually explicit images).
Release versions
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).External links
- Official North American All About Anna page
- All About Anna review at FleshbotFleshbotFleshbot is a sex-oriented weblog, published by Gawker Media. It was launched in November 2003 as the third online title from Gawker. The range of subject matter includes everything from amateur sex blogs and thumbnail gallery posts to news about sex in popular culture and advertising...
- All About Anna review at Adult Video News