The Price of Sex is a feature-length documentary about young Eastern European women who’ve been drawn into a netherworld of sex trafficking and abuse. Intimate, harrowing and revealing, it is a story told by the young women who were supposed to be silenced by shame, fear and violence. Photojournalist Mimi Chakarova, who grew up in Bulgaria, takes us on a personal investigative 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, sex trafficking thrives.
The Price of Sex is one of the most gripping documentaries that I have seen in some time. The bravery that this young film maker had to go undercover in the world of sex trafficking… I cannot even begin to understand it. What a terrifying sight it was to see of all of those lost girls in brothels and on the streets, with cops on the same streets, doing absolutely nothing. Learning that the raids were done mainly to appease the rest of the concerned world… it’s devastating. Having read many books on this issue and getting more involved over recent years with awareness, prevention, and recovery, it still never ceases to break my heart just as much as it did the first time that this life, this truth came to my attention. Putting a face to the oppression, seeing the devastation it causes, it really puts it all into perspective. So often, people give their money to a cause but not their time, heart, and soul and what we see here is why it is so important to be there and help these women from the get go so that they do not get the chance to get caught up in the trafficking world.
The Price of Sex is eye opening, no matter how educated you think you are on the subject. Hearing from sex trafficking victims themselves, their words will leave you stunned. But from there, you will be encouraged and inspired to take a stand and lend a hand for these babies, these girls, these women. The Price of Sex is a must see documentary for everyone. No matter the cause you “support,” millions of women across the globe are not being supported and don’t have anyone looking out for them, so take a look at some of those faces here and then tell me how you are going to make a difference this year.
The Price of Sex airs Saturday March 10, 2012 8:00pm on Documentary Channel (DISH Network, Channel 197 and DIRECTV, Channel 267).
Tracing the influence of the Women’s Movement’s Second Wave on art and life, The Heretics is the exhilarating inside story of the New York feminist art collective that produced “Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics” (1977-92). In this feature-length documentary, cutting-edge video artist/writer/director Joan Braderman, who joined the group in 1975 as an aspiring filmmaker, charts the collective’s challenges to terms of gender and power and its history as a microcosm of the period’s broader transformations.
On the road with her camera crew from New Mexico to Italy, Braderman reconnects with 28 other group members, including writer/critic Lucy Lippard, architect Susanna Torre, filmmaker Su Friedrich, and artists Ida Applebroog, Mary Miss, Miriam Schapiro, and Cecilia Vicuña. Still funny, smart and sexy, the geographically dispersed participants revisit how and why they came together and the extraordinary times they shared—supporting and exploring women’s art and demanding the right to be heard.
I was interested in watching The Heretics because I am very intrigued by the social and political movements of the 70s. I feel like I was born in the wrong time period and to be a young woman in the 70s would have been… ah, words can’t even explain. So every chance that I get to soak up the times, I do. What I love about this documentary is that it follows feminist artists from not just America, in New York but all over the world.
It’s a history and retrospective of the feminist art collective that produced “Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics” which I knew nothing about prior to. So there was plenty for me to learn throughout this documentary and plenty for me to laugh along with as these are incredibly intelligent and quick-witted women, so it makes for a very entertaining documentary. If you’re interested in learning about the behind the scenes happenings of a feminist magazine in the 1970s (the good and the bad), or are simply interested in the feminist movement, this is the documentary to watch. You will not be disappointed. Stay tuned!
The Heretics airs Saturday March 17, 2012 8:00pm on Documentary Channel (DISH Network, Channel 197 and DIRECTV, Channel 267).