FESTIVALS:
*Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (Greece)
* One World International Film Festival (Czech Republic)
* Milano Film Festival (Italy)
* Doc Lounge Scandinavia (Malmö, Sweden)
* FIFDH - Festival du film et Forum sur les Droits Humains (Geneve, Switzerland)
* International Human Rights Film Festival in Albania (Tirana, Albania)
* Take One Action Film Festival (Edinburgh, UK)
* Human Rights Nights Film Festival (Bologna, Italy)
* Inconvenient Films Documentary Festival (Vilnius, Lithuania)
* Cinemigrante (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
* Free Zone Belgrade Human Rights Film Festival (Serbia)
* This Human World (Vienna, Austria)
* Input Documentary Festival (Hilversum, The Netherlands)
* Reykjavík Shorts and Docs (Iceland)
* Human Rights Watch Film Festival (New York, NY, USA)
* Underhillfest (Podgorica, Montenegro)
* One World Slovakia (Bratislava, Slovak Republic)
* Crime and Punishment International Film Festival (Beyoglu - Istanbul , Turkey)
* Oblo Cinema (Lausanne, Switzerland)
* Karama Human Rights Film Festival (Amman, Jordan)
* Oxford Brookes University Human Rights Film Festival (Oxford, UK)
* Mostra de Documentários sobre Direitos Humanos (Sintra Codex, Portugal)
* Nepal International Human Rights Film Festival (Kathmandu, Nepal)
* Valencia Human Rights Film Festival (Spain)
* The Nest International (Copenhagen V, Denmark)
* Glowbalact (Uster, Switzerland)
* Days of Bulgarian cinema (Berlin, Germany)
* Helsinki Refugee Film Festival (Finland)
* Kinoki Film Festival (Mexico City, Mexico)
* Broadway Cinema (Nottingham, UK)
* KiniKino Filmklubb (Sandnes, Norway)
* Human Screen (Tunisia)
* Rotas&Rituais (Lisbon, Portugal)
* Newcastle University (Leeds, UK)
* Nova Alternativa (Sofia, Bulgaria)
* FIFDH-Lugano (Switzerland)
* Tbilisi International Film Festival (Georgia)
* Ulysses’ Gaze (The Netherlands)
* Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation (Taiwan)

AWARDS:
* The Los Angeles Movie Award For Best Narration & Award For Excellence
* Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking
* Daniel Pearl Award




The Price of Sex

Category |Human Interest, Human Rights, Investigative, Justice, Social Issues, Women
Year | 2011
Country | USA
Running time | 73’-52'
Format | HDCam Widescre
Production | Violeu Productions
Director | Mimi Chakarova


The film is about young women from Eastern Europe who were sold into prostitution against their will. I've spent many years gaining access to their stories, and also posing as a prostitute in order to get into some of the sex clubs and brothels in the Middle East and the West where the women end up sold as sex slaves. “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 film will premiere in 2011. Mimi Chakarova has spent seven years investigating and documenting the sex trafficking of women from Eastern Europe. "If I had stayed in the country where I was born (Bulgaria), I probably would have been one of them," Chakarova said in an interview discussing her motivations for pursuing the dangerous, sad and enraging project. "These girls risk everything because they want a better life."

PRESS IMAGES: (click to preview)