HUMAN SEX TRAFFICKING IS PORTRAYED IN TRADE OF INNOCENTS
Trade of Innocents, directed by Christopher Bessette, is about teenage prostitutes in Cambodia. Two Americans, Alex and Claire Becker (played by Dermot Mulroney and Mira Sorvino) go to Cambodia (though filmed in Bangkok) to liberate the girls after their own 7-year-old daughter had been kidnapped and killed. But Police Chief Pakkadey (played by Sahajak Boon Thanakit) believes that the money derived from prostitution will help poor Cambodian families who voluntarily surrender their children. As for the Vietnamese prostitutes who have been kidnapped, the film portrays the enmity of Cambodians toward their neighbors. Sorvino is cast because she is Goodwill Ambassador to Combat Human Trafficking for the United Nations, and the film ends with a plea to stop human trafficking. Alas, the film has not appeared on a commercial basis in a cinema within Los Angeles to qualify for a Political Film Society nomination. Instead, Trade of Innocents was a Hilton Hotel guest pay-per-view selection in April. MH