The Women Outside

They're called bar women, hostesses, or sex workers and "western princesses." They come from poor families, struggling to earn a decent wage, only to be forced into the world's oldest profession. They're the women who work in the camptowns that surround U.S. military bases in South Korea. In 40 years, over a million women have worked in Korea's military sex industry, but their existence has never been officially acknowledged by either government. In The Women Outside, a film by J.T. Orinne Takagi and Hye Jung Park, some of these women bravely speak out about their lives for the first time. The film raises provocative questions about military policy, economic survival, and the role of women in global geopolitics

A kiss for Gabriela

A KISS FOR GABRIELA tells the story of a remarkable woman named Gabriela Leite. An activist for sex workers’ rights for over 30 years, Gabriela was the first sex worker to run for Brazilian Congress. The documentary presents an intimate portrait of her 2010 campaign when she faced 822 opponents and challenged a male dominated political system. Combining an observational style with unrestricted access, it explores what it means to be a prostitute, to be a wife, and most importantly, what it means for a woman representing one of the most stigmatized populations in the world to run for office. Gabriela’s charisma and amazing history of activism engages audiences and encourages them to reflect critically on laws and policies that restrict the rights and possibilities of women like Gabriela globally. For women like Gabriela who make history and challenge stereotypes with their campaigns, it is not whether they win or lose, or even how they play. It’s that they’re in the game at all.

Frau Mercedes

In Bern, Madame Mercedes has been working for 35 years in her car as a prostitute. An intimate and subtle portrait about ageing as a prostitute, a documentary about a vanishing chapter of habits in Switzerland.

Under the Rose

James Wong and his female assistant visited various kinds of pleasure-houses, including invisible dens, high-tech private dens, smuggling blackpoints and famouse tryst places, both large and small ones, throughout Hong Kong. They also looked back to the Scientific Beauty in Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park, striptease in the Kowloon Walled City and the old stories in fish-ball stalls. There are also interviews of call-girls and grooms.

Chasing Fireflies

Chasing Fireflies focuses on the narratives of young female children who were victimized by human trafficking and their eventual captivity to child prostitution.

Cocottes et courtisanes dans l’œil des peintres

Paper Cannot Wrap Up Embers

During the last half-century, Cambodia has witnessed genocide, decades of war and the collapse of social order. Now, documentary filmmaker Rithy Panh looks at an irreparable tragedy that is less visible, yet no less pervasive: the spiritual death that results when young women are forced into prostitution. Angry and impassioned, PAPER CANNOT WRAP UP EMBERS presents the searing stories of poor Asian women whose lives were violated and their destinies destroyed when their bodies were turned into items of sexual commerce.

69 - Praça da Luz

Prostitutes of old age make their living in Praça da Luz, in São Paulo. Unusual and surprising accounts of five women who reveal in detail their experiences in all these years of profession.

TMZ Presents: The Downfall of Diddy

A series of lawsuits and allegations have legendary rap mogul P. Diddy on the ropes. TMZ has the troubling inside story from people who were there.

The Prostitutes of Lyon Speak

Documentary about the Lyon sex workers who occupied the church of St. Nizier on June 3, 1975.

Sexwork & Me

21st century legal prostitution through the frank stories of Amsterdam red-light district sex workers at a time when tighter regulation threatens their livelihood.

Zulu Rema has learned to fly

The story of Emeer - AKA B-boy Zulu Rema - a Tunisian teenager, who had both is leg amputated as a child, and of his passion for art and dance, that has helped him become a break dance champion at national level and a role model for young people all over the world.

Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

During the same summer as Woodstock, over 300,000 people attended the Harlem Cultural Festival, celebrating African American music and culture, and promoting Black pride and unity. The footage from the festival sat in a basement, unseen for over 50 years, keeping this incredible event in America's history lost — until now.

Waste Land

An uplifting feature documentary highlighting the transformative power of art and the beauty of the human spirit. Top-selling contemporary artist Vik Muniz takes us on an emotional journey from Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, to the heights of international art stardom. Vik collaborates with the brilliant catadores, pickers of recyclable materials, true Shakespearean characters who live and work in the garbage quoting Machiavelli and showing us how to recycle ourselves.

Body Without Soul

Documentary look at doomed male prostitutes in Prague, ages 15 to 18, who troll at the public swimming pool, the train station, a video arcade, and a disco. After the boys talk about how they got in the game, the camera follows them to the home of Pavel Rousek. Under the name Hans Miller, he makes gay porno videos, primarily for German distribution. Intercut with a movie shoot chez Rousek is an interview that follows him to his day job at a morgue, where he performs an autopsy as he talks about his work. The sex is without protection; the boys are without family. They talk about their bodies and souls, money, their sexual orientation, AIDS, their dreams, and death.

Happy Endings?

An intriguing exploration of the Asian massage parlor industry in Providence, RI, where a 25 year-old loophole has made the exchange of sex for money legal - as long as it happens behind closed doors. As the documentary follows a recent Korean immigrant, "Heather", working to operate her spa, the city's mayor fights to change the law that allows her business a legal existence. The film includes interviews with Korean women who work in spas, clients who frequent the spas, politicians from 1980 and today, police, local news footage, radio call-in shows and "voiced" reviews from inter-net escort review boards.