Directed by Valerie Kontakos
Documentary
Greece Canada United States Switzerland | 2023 | 78 min
In English, and Greek
Watch TrailerFrom pre-WWII Greece to her meteoric rise through the notorious Times Square area known as the Deuce in the 1970s, Queen of the Deuce tells the story of Chelly Wilson, who was born Rachel Serrero into a Sephardic Jewish community in Thessaloniki (Salonika). Escaping to America at the outbreak of World War II, without her family, she reinvented herself and with, the onslaught of the modern gay rights movement and the success of Deep Throat, developed a porn cinema empire.
Queen of the Deuce reveals Chelly’s origins as a taboo-breaking entrepreneur and traces the fraught events that lead to her departure from Europe on the eve of war, and the unconventional trajectories of her American business ventures and personal life. With the rise of feminism, the sexual revolution and gay pride in frame, Queen of the Deuce is an alternate take on cultural history as seen through Chelly Wilson’s empowering story of survival.
Valerie Kontakos
Valerie Kontakos A native New Yorker, Valerie Kontakos has been living between Athens and New York since 2003. After graduating from NYU, she worked as a sound editor for the Maysles brothers, Deborah Dickson & Anita Thacher. In 1989 she directed her first feature documentary A Quality of Light. In 1994 she became the deputy director of the Hellenic Foundation in NYC, where she started the NYC Greek Film Festival and curated a monthly program for the American Museum of the Moving Image. She founded Exile Films in Athens in 2007 and has been operating the non-profit Exile Room, focusing on social outreach through documentaries, since 2009. She’s on the Board of Directors of the Greek Cinematheque. Queen of the Deuce is her fourth feature.