The Price of Sex
Dir. by Mimi Chakarova, 2011
Fri Jun 24: 9:30 pm Buy Tickets
Sat Jun 25: 3:30 pm Buy Tickets
Sun Jun 26: 1:30 pm Buy Tickets
Q&A with filmmaker
HRW Festival synopsis (scroll down for review):
Intimate and revealing, The Price of Sex focuses on young Eastern European women who have been drawn into a world of sex trafficking and abuse.
The award-winning photojournalist Mimi Chakarova, who grew up in Bulgaria, takes viewers on a personal journey, exposing the shadowy world of sex trafficking from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Western Europe.
Filming undercover and gaining extraordinary access, Chakarova illuminates how, even though some women escape to tell their stories, the trafficking of women continues to thrive.
Chakarova is the recipient of the festival’s 2011 Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking.
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The Price of Sex
2-3/4 stars (out of 4) [(2010)docu/US-United Arab Emirates-Bulgaria-Moldova-Greece-Turkey/A Women Make Movies release] - (1 hr 12 min)
Director/Narrator/Interviewer: Mimi Chakarova
Review:
"How much?" - the only two words of English a new prostitute has to learn.
Photojournalist-turned-documentarian Mimi Chakarova is obviously trying to educate the Western world about human trafficking on her side of the globe, Eastern Europe. She has been photographing and interviewing victims of human trafficking for nearly twenty years and "The Price of Sex" is the product of her substantial work.
Unlike the drugging and kidnapping of innocent girls, explored in fictional fare (like "Taken"), Chakarova's subjects are rather dull, unattractive, and extremely gullible Slavic farm girls who innocently apply for work outside the country and are duped (then forced) into a life of prostitution.
Usually an older woman does the recruiting so the newly-hired young women feel safe for a trip abroad, even when the destination changes from "financial security" to "living nightmare."
As Chakarova details, it's not where they send you, it's where you end up. The top five destinations are Russia, Turkey, Greece, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates. Countries with lots of influential men who can easily bribe govt. officials and keep anti-trafficking legislation from being enacted or enforced.
As with any tale of "forced sex," the pimps and traffickers (as interviewed) view their crimes as harmless and necessary, almost laughing in front of Chakarova's camera as she seeks answers to this ruthless enslavement of women. The pimps also explain how to "break" a woman's spirit by selling her for "$5 a lay" to hordes of horny construction workers (some women service over 40 men a day until they are broken).
One answer that Chakarova has taken to heart is the "education" of innocent young women in her native Bulgaria (before they can be taken) via displays of her photographs and now this film. Wising up these young women to the ways of the world is the real battle, especially when so many police officers have been co-opted by the pimps who trade "free sex" to cops for legal favors (or to look the other way).
If this film has a fault, it's that Chakarova's undercover "sex club" footage is rather innocent looking, as if she'd stumbled into a regular local disco. And Chakarova herself is a beautiful young woman, yet none of the pimps have tried to kidnap or enslave her. Maybe it's becaause she carries a weapon they can't overcome, her intelligence.
So the film ends on a hope and a prayer that intelligence can overcome a worldwide custom rather than sounding the alarm for women everywhere to demand ownership of their own bodies. Until that time, Chakarova 's struggle will continue to be a work-in-progress.
Can "men" legislate against a practice that so many of them have adopted as part of their lifestyle, or will women have to wait until thay have attained all the political power positions and enact the changes themselves?
WEBSITE-priceofsex.org
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Dir. by Mimi Chakarova, 2011
Fri Jun 24: 9:30 pm Buy Tickets
Sat Jun 25: 3:30 pm Buy Tickets
Sun Jun 26: 1:30 pm Buy Tickets
Q&A with filmmaker
HRW Festival synopsis (scroll down for review):
Intimate and revealing, The Price of Sex focuses on young Eastern European women who have been drawn into a world of sex trafficking and abuse.
The award-winning photojournalist Mimi Chakarova, who grew up in Bulgaria, takes viewers on a personal journey, exposing the shadowy world of sex trafficking from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Western Europe.
Filming undercover and gaining extraordinary access, Chakarova illuminates how, even though some women escape to tell their stories, the trafficking of women continues to thrive.
Chakarova is the recipient of the festival’s 2011 Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking.
____________________________________________
The Price of Sex
2-3/4 stars (out of 4) [(2010)docu/US-United Arab Emirates-Bulgaria-Moldova-Greece-Turkey/A Women Make Movies release] - (1 hr 12 min)
Director/Narrator/Interviewer: Mimi Chakarova
Review:
"How much?" - the only two words of English a new prostitute has to learn.
Photojournalist-turned-documentarian Mimi Chakarova is obviously trying to educate the Western world about human trafficking on her side of the globe, Eastern Europe. She has been photographing and interviewing victims of human trafficking for nearly twenty years and "The Price of Sex" is the product of her substantial work.
Unlike the drugging and kidnapping of innocent girls, explored in fictional fare (like "Taken"), Chakarova's subjects are rather dull, unattractive, and extremely gullible Slavic farm girls who innocently apply for work outside the country and are duped (then forced) into a life of prostitution.
Usually an older woman does the recruiting so the newly-hired young women feel safe for a trip abroad, even when the destination changes from "financial security" to "living nightmare."
As Chakarova details, it's not where they send you, it's where you end up. The top five destinations are Russia, Turkey, Greece, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates. Countries with lots of influential men who can easily bribe govt. officials and keep anti-trafficking legislation from being enacted or enforced.
As with any tale of "forced sex," the pimps and traffickers (as interviewed) view their crimes as harmless and necessary, almost laughing in front of Chakarova's camera as she seeks answers to this ruthless enslavement of women. The pimps also explain how to "break" a woman's spirit by selling her for "$5 a lay" to hordes of horny construction workers (some women service over 40 men a day until they are broken).
One answer that Chakarova has taken to heart is the "education" of innocent young women in her native Bulgaria (before they can be taken) via displays of her photographs and now this film. Wising up these young women to the ways of the world is the real battle, especially when so many police officers have been co-opted by the pimps who trade "free sex" to cops for legal favors (or to look the other way).
If this film has a fault, it's that Chakarova's undercover "sex club" footage is rather innocent looking, as if she'd stumbled into a regular local disco. And Chakarova herself is a beautiful young woman, yet none of the pimps have tried to kidnap or enslave her. Maybe it's becaause she carries a weapon they can't overcome, her intelligence.
So the film ends on a hope and a prayer that intelligence can overcome a worldwide custom rather than sounding the alarm for women everywhere to demand ownership of their own bodies. Until that time, Chakarova 's struggle will continue to be a work-in-progress.
Can "men" legislate against a practice that so many of them have adopted as part of their lifestyle, or will women have to wait until thay have attained all the political power positions and enact the changes themselves?
WEBSITE-priceofsex.org
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