Archive for the 'Events' Category
Éimear Fisher Executive Director, Cosc launched the Pregnancy and Domestic Abuse: A Routine Screening Model DVD on Monday the 24 of May 2010 at the Cork University Maternity Hospital.
In the modern European city of Dublin comes another new recruit to the sex trade. Trafficked in the back of a van, young African girl Taiwo, believes she is about to start a new life free from the oppression at home. But she soon finds that she is trapped in the dark seedy underworld of vice and drugs of a city living the Celtic Tiger. She meets small time hood Keely, who unwittingly seals both their fates when he steals her from the gangsters she was supposed to work for.
The Story
Starring Ruth Negga and Karl Shiels, the films narrative is a love story with a controversial message within an underworld thriller.
Ruth Negga plays Taiwo, a young and naïve illegal immigrant to Dublin destined for a life of enforced prostitution. Seeking freedom from oppression, she escapes her traffickers, but is ‘befriended’ by small-time crook Keely (Karl Shiels), who guides her back into the world of vice and drugs via a job in a lap dance club. A strange relationship develops of mutual dependence and mutual exploitation.
In the club, the manipulations of Tony (Martin Dunne), the proprietor, and Cherry (Nellie Conroy) his partner, coupled with the need for survival, lead her deeper into this world. In the background the minions of gang boss McManus (Niall O’Brien) look for their masters prize.
Reviews
Dublin has never looked so grim or so unwelcoming than in Ciarán O’Connor’s gritty inner city nightmare in which the naïve and innocent are exploited and corrupted by a malevolent underworld populated by gangsters, pimps and whores.
Boasting excellent performances from Sheils and Negga, Trafficked is an unflinching depiction of the well-hidden urban sub-class that now, sadly, appears to exist in almost all major cities. It is relentless and nasty, realistic and confrontational in its attitude to the 21st Century sex trade and its young, often anonymous, victims. It also hints at a much wider malaise; Keely, the petty crook, is merely the tip of an iceberg of malice. And as Taiwo drifts through the dark, brutal and unforgiving streets of an unfamiliar city, she inadvertently, but constantly, moves up to another level of manipulation, subjugation and control.
Reminiscent of both Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa and Lukas Moodysson’s Lilja 4-Ever with elements of Tony Scott’s True Romance, Trafficked is a striking, uncompromising debut by writer/director O’Connor, and bodes well for future projects. One to watch.
Event Guide
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“This unflinching, bleak drama has been achieved with a strong cast (in which Russell is outstanding), visual imagination and narrative flair on a very small budget.”
Trafficked premiers on 19th May, with a nationwide release 21st May.
It will be playing at:
Dublin
Cineworld, Parnell Street / The Screen, d’Olier Street / Dun Laoghaire Multiplex
Cork
Mahon Omniplex
Galway
Galway Omniplex