Family Matters

Diana, Ilana, Rona, Shelly, Rucha and Liat openly speak about their life in prostitution: from the initial lure, through learning the rules, to survival strategies. They present stories of independence, resourcefulness, pain and trauma, expressing an extreme feminine and human experience. Michaela (pseudonym) – a young woman currently engaged in prostitution, sounds off on the struggle to survive, turning her cellphone camera into a weapon. The women challenge what is expected of them – to be ashamed and conceal themselves.

EMPOWER is a series of three portraits of sex workers with heterogeneous trajectories crossing paths of migration, Trans identities, feminism, the fight against HIV, the fight against precariousness and discrimination. Interweaving personal journeys, political analysis, and strategies of collective resistance, Aying, Giovanna Murillo Rincon, and Mylène Juste demand for the rights of minorities. Far from the objectification often at work in documentaries, EMPOWER is a tribute to the voices of sex workers through an active collaboration in production with the protagonists.

Three strangers immersed in the world of camming come together to discuss its impact on young people. But their views are radically different. While one sees it as a respectable trade full of dedicated and liberated women, another sees it as a direct exploitation of the male libido. The third sees it as a haven for lonely people like himself to reconnect with the intimacy that’s missing from their lives. What they don’t know is that they all have one person in common – and she’s watching the conversation from the next room. Bex is a curvy cam model, and she’s witnessing their unfiltered feelings about her and the industry unfold. Filled with passionate debates, disagreements, humour and revelation, will our common people unite? Or will their revelations polarise them further?

A Q&A session with the founder of 'Heaux History Project' Erica aka Rebelle.

Is it anyone's business if consenting adults want to pay or accept money for sex? Sex worker and author Maggie McNeill tells her startling tale about the persecution of sex workers based on the false assumption that most of them are exploited victims of pimps and traffickers. Her movement is challenging these assumptions and the powerful political and cultural forces behind them.

The history of New York’s Meatpacking District, told from the perspective of transgender sex workers who lived and worked there. Filmmaker Kristen Lovell, who walked “The Stroll” for a decade, reunites her community to recount the violence, policing, homelessness, and gentrification they overcame to build a movement for transgender rights.

Two foreigners meet in Barcelona and become friends after discovering that they both work in the same business: sex work. Their conversations offer an insider’s view into the differences between women and men in the sex industry.

1961 documentary about the history and seedy reality of the sex industry in London's Soho.

A public service announcement condemning the ominous obstacle of social parasitism and delinquency amongst wayward youth unwilling to contribute to Romania’s socialist advancement.

Em is an escort girl and a heroin addict. From New York to Los Angeles via Pittsburgh, Em’s daily life is revealed.

Radical feminist Andrea Dworkin's expose on the pornography industry.

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

Fadma, 75, tells her life story including being recruited as a sex worker for the French army aged 20, and her views on love, parenthood, and destiny.

A documentary about prostitution in New York. Featuring interviews with all parties mentioned in the title.

A feature documentary about the commercial sex industry on Guam.

Call it acting or prostitution; the phone sex phenomenon reflects the darker side of the telemarketing industry. From the absurd to the disturbing. Mind Fuck is a brave foray into the strange and fascinating psychological world of phone sex in which the real operators, normally stuck on the receiving end of the line, finally get to freely speak their mind.

Enter the universe of three mujra dancers in Pakistan as they dodge state censorship and violence to vie for stardom.

A look behind the scenes of the Czech gay porn boom.

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

Documentary look at the 1996-97 effort of the dancers and support staff at a San Francisco peep show, The Lusty Lady, to unionize. Angered by arbitrary and race-based wage policies, customers' surreptitious video cameras, and no paid sick days or holidays, the dancers get help from the Service Employees International local and enter protracted bargaining with the union-busting law firm that management hires. We see the women work, sort out their demands, and go through the difficulties of bargaining. The narrator is Julia Query, a dancer and stand-up comedian who is reluctant to tell her mother, a physician who works with prostitutes, that she strips.