Sex Traffic.

The Purple Teardrop Campaign.

Dumfries and Galloway Domestic Abuse and Violence Against Women Partnership (DAVAWP) organised a free screening at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre as part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence campaign. The evening was arranged to highlight human trafficking, 80% of which involves women and young girls. Victims, usually from poorer countries are enticed to richer one’s, with promises of a good job and somewhere decent to live. Women and girls in particular are targeted by traffickers, offered jobs in hotels or restaurants, but in reality, they are intended for work in the sex industry. When they arrive in this country their passports are taken away, they are raped, often beaten and imprisoned in brothels or massage parlours and forced to have sex with multiple clients every day. The majority of victim’s trafficked into the sex industry are from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. For more information on sex trafficking and ideas on how to stamp it out see The Purple Teardrop Campaign

The Film.

Following a short introduction the mainly female audience watched Sex Traffic a powerful drama originally shown in two-part’s on British television in 2004. It was shot in Eastern Europe, Canada and London and involves the sex trade where young women are transported to various cities and forced into prostitution. The main thrust of the story involves two sisters from Moldova who are tricked into thinking that a better life awaits them in London where they have been promised legitimate work. Instead they are sold into sexual slavery and trafficked through Romania, Serbia, Albania, and Bosnia, Italy and eventually to the sexual under bellow of London. The brutal life of the girls is juxtaposed with corporate business in America involving corruption amongst international peacekeepers and demonstrates how sex is seen as just another lucrative business venture without any feeling for the human misery that it evokes, and as the film so adequately reveals its “just a matter of supply and demand”

Harry Potter filmmaker David Yates pulls no punches in this BAFTA award winning Channel 4 production; John Simm plays the researcher and charity investigator Daniel Appleton and Anamaria Marinca makes her debut as one of the two sisters, Elena Visinesou, a role she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress and went on to make the award winning Romanian feature film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007). Tonight’s screening was a great way to exemplify the harrowing nature of the sex trade it exposes and the greed of the so called legitimate businesses involved that are no better than pimps and criminal’s.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Bellatrix Lestrange (my favourite character)

Seven books and eight films later and they still can’t tell the difference between Kings Cross and St Pancras railway stations? A great deal of British actors have now collected their P 45s with the completion of one off the most famous and lucrative film franchises of all time. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is the final time we be able to sample new adventures of Hogwarts most famous pupil.

This final outing is the usual story of good verses evil and as usual the result was never in doubt. As I have commented previously it’s great entertainment, but instantly forgettable. But I’m sure there are an awful lot of people of all ages that will miss these stories, but with obvious advantage of DVD’s and Blu-ray there’s no reason to go without a regular Potter infusion. Maybe when my grandchildren get to an age where they are old enough to appreciate the magic of cinema then perhaps it will be time to set aside the required twenty hours to revisit this successful saga. I’ve got a better idea; perhaps I’ll ask grandma to show them, who really did enjoy the films.  

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1

Harry and his arch enemy.

Although I have watched one or two films over the holiday period the instantly forgettable Harry Potter was my only visit to the RBC Film Theatre. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1 (2010) is the first part of J K Rowling’s seventh and final book in the Potter saga, incidentally the second part is not due for release until July 2011: a very long wait considering that Parts 1 and 2 were apparently shot back to back over an 18-month period. It was decided to split this final book into two adaptations for the big screen because the producers felt the story is so dense, and to resolve the saga with any creditability at all, it should be told over a longer period, debatable, this film is very much over long! If viewers have not seen the previous films or read the books they have not a cat’s chance in hell to follow what’s going on, even my good self, who has so far seen all the previous six movies, found it a little difficult to follow at times. Directed by David Yates, who as well as directing two other Potter movies, Order of the Phoenix (2007) and Half-Blood Prince (2009) directed the six part TV drama State of Play and the two-part drama Sex Traffic (2004).

We have now been watching the main protagonists getting older over a ten year period without, it would seem any apparent improvement in their acting skills. In this new movie we only get to see the adult actors spasmodically which I felt is a chronic waste of talent and would have made a far more entertaining film if we had seen more of them. The plot involves our three intrepid heroes’ on a quest to find Lord Voldemorts Horgruxes, dark magical objects that are the secret behind the evil one’s immortality. When Potter films have been described as dark, take dark to mean baffling!