Jorge Léon: 10 min.

Still photos from a prostitution environment, without any persons pictured,   accompany the words from a witness statement to the police. It is a alarming declaration read by a male voice, straight forward and neutral without any attempt to touch the viewer emotionally. The right choice as the text is so strong in content that it touches to hear another trafficking victim come up with her detailed story about her being promised a fine job as a nurse for an old woman in Belgium, just to find out that the job that was waiting for her was prostitution. She flees her window place, and goes back to Bulgaria where the trafficking mafia finds her and makes her object to countless sexual assaults. She goes back to Belgium and reports.

Trafficking testimonies like this are well known in beforehand from newspapers, tv, other documentaries… this is (also) the new Europe, and we should be reminded. The film does its information well.

Belgium, 2009, 19 mins. Shown at Cinéma du Réel 2009:

http://www.cinereel.org/

jorgeleon@skyney.be

Share your love
Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

Articles: 3927