Highly controversial and divisive upon its release in 1982, Bonnie Sherr Klein's exploration of pornography, exploitation, and the sex industry is both timely and essential viewing today.

One of the most controversial and successful movies in the history of Canada's National Film Board, Bonnie Sherr Klein's documentary NOT A LOVE STORY: A FILM ABOUT PORNOGRAPHY was met with both praise and outrage upon its release in 1982. Featuring interviews and footage with activists (among them Kate Millet, Robin Morgan, Susan Griffin and Margaret Atwood), strippers, performers and entrepreneurs, as well as forays into the seedier reaches of the adult entertainment industry, the film focuses primarily on Lindalee Tracey, a performance artist/poet who would go on to become a documentarian in her own right. Tracey accompanies Klein into the darker corners of porn world while offering up a perspective about sex and the sex industry that differs markedly from that of the filmmakers, the experts, and the activists.

A work that divided audiences in countless ways initially — and probably still will — NOT A LOVE STORY came at a time when discussions around erotica and pornography were in their infancy, and the filmmakers found themselves caught up in a raging debate about both exploitation and censorship. As Rebecca Sullivan points out in her lucid new monograph (co-published by University of Toronto Press and TIFF), the debate eventually overshadowed the film, which, thanks to Klein's approach and Tracey's intellectual energy and courage, is at its best simultaneously curious, horrified and conflicted about its subject — far from the simple, dogmatic anti-porn statement it's often considered to be. Given recent events like Gamergate and the Cosby and Ghomeshi allegations, and the emergence of internet comment-section cretins who seem to have turned back the clock on dialogue around abuse, consent and misogyny, the film's exploration of these issues is, thirty-two years on, not just timely: it is essential viewing.

– Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)