The Portland Women’s Film Festival (a.k.a. POW Fest) will be placing a local spotlight on the issue of Child Trafficking and abuse on September 9th , 6pm at the Hollywood Theatre, with a special screening of the documentary “Playground” by Director Libby Spears, executive produced by George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh. The screening will benefit Caldera and POW Fest Documentary Programming. The evening will begin with a reception, sponsored by New Belgium Brewing Company, a silent auction and special introduction by Senator Ron Wyden – cosponsor of an anti-trafficking bill in the Senate – and conclude with a special Question & Answer session with civic leaders and Spears immediately following the film.
Commercial sexual exploitation is the world’s fastest growing form of organized crime and we hear about it more each day. It is also the kind of problem that we tend to relegate to back-alley brothels in developing countries. Filmmaker Libby Spears faced death threats when she went undercover in South Korea and Thailand to infiltrate brothels and investigate the trafficking of children for commercial sexual exploitation, but what she uncovered was an unknown epidemic and the untold story of an American underworld, and Portland, Oregon was at the center.
Touted as one of the best places to live and work in the country, it is hard to fathom that Portland is one of the largest hubs for the sexual exploitation of children from every walk of life. On May 18th, Dan Rather reported that Portland ranked second in the country for the number of rescued child prostitutes via the Huffington Post. Despite being known as a model American city, Portland has more strip clubs per capita than Las Vegas and it serves as the backdrop for Spears’ film.
Punctuated with poignant animation by Japanese pop artist Yoshitomo Nara; and music by Bjork, Chris Martin, Radiohead, Cat Power and others; this film is essential viewing for any parent or engaged citizen. www.playgroundproject.com
Tickets for the reception and screening are $20 and are available at www.powfest.com. Proceeds will go to Caldera in support of their media arts youth programming, as well as the documentary programming component of POW Fest 2011.
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Event Summary
Date: Thursday, September 9th, 2010
6:00 pm Reception & Silent Auction
7:00 pm Screening introduced by Senator Ron Wyden 9:00 pm Question & Answer Session with Director Libby Spears & Civic Leaders Tickets are $20 and include reception Ticket sales will benefit POW Fest Documentary Programming as well as Caldera
Contact
Tara Johnson-Medinger
Executive Director, The Portland Women’s Film Festival [email protected] www.powfest.com
503.267.1126
Kirsten Kilchenstein
Education Director, Caldera
503. 937.7594
POW Fest is produced by Sour Apple Productions in partnership with Film Action Oregon
