Asphalt Roses

A red-light district in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The camera is admitted into a "running house". Love for sale looks like a routine, dreary assembly line exercise here, sometimes almost like a comedy.

A look behind the doors of the five-storey Paradise club in Stuttgart, exploring what life's like for sex workers and their clients in a country with some of the world's most liberal prostitution laws.

A documentary investigation across five countries on the big business of sexual slavery.

A powerful feature documentary about child sexploitation, an epidemic happening in every country around the world. Filmed over a four year period, REDLIGHT focuses on the personal stories of young Cambodian victims and two remarkable advocates for change: grass-roots activist Somaly Mam and politician Mu Sochua. Using gritty footage smuggled out of brothels and harrowing testimonials, REDLIGHT follows the plight of several current and former child sex slaves. Some are trying to regain entry into Cambodian society to find some semblance of normality after their horrific experiences. Other stories highlight the plight of victims who are attempting to bring the perpetrators to justice. Their torturous yet ultimately heroic battles to find witnesses and take brothel owners to court are dramatically brought to life in this topical and moving feature documentary.

Cocottes et courtisanes dans l’œil des peintres

A group of prostitutes in Rio de Janeiro who fight to obtain rights and reduce stigma, create a clothing label that quickly invades Brazilian fashion shows. Poster photo by Daniela Pinheiro.

High Class Call Girls is a a revealing glimpse into the lives of Emily B and Cookie Jane, two self-dubbed high class call girls who charge thousands of pounds for a night with clients who find them through new location-based apps.

In Bangkok, Thailand, women punch a clock and wait for clients in a brightly lit glass box; in the red-light district of Faridpur, Bangladesh, a madam haggles over the price of a teenage girl; and in the border town of Reynosa, Mexico, crack-addicted women pray to a deity named Lady Death.

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.

From the sultry streets of Hunts Point in the South Bronx, comes the rawest, realest and truest documentation of the world's oldest profession ever captured on video. From Brent Owens, the director of Pimps Up, Ho's Down, comes the first two in a series of five films. Hookers At The Point focuses on the business of sex and the people involved in it. As a special bonus we have included Hookers At The Point: Going Out Again, where we follow up on the personalities from the first film and see where "The Life" has led them.

In the spring of 1902, Viennese working-class daughter Marie König runs away from her beating father and is lured into a high-class brothel by an agent. Instead of the promised self-determined life "with horse-drawn carriage rides and silk dresses", she experiences closed doors, violence and exploitation. Only after years of agony does Marie confide in the journalist Emil Bader, who makes the conditions in the brothel public and takes the owner, Regine Riehl, to court.

Following Hannah, a queer twenty-something filmmaker, and her two sisters as they explore the globally popular phenomenon of sugar-dating where people in their 20s date older, wealthier men in exchange for money and gifts. Hannah's exploration into the lucrative life of a sugar baby challenges her morals and feminist ideals as she tries to maintain her personal relationships.

Mom and Me is a personal and intimate documentary about a young filmmaker coming of age in extraordinary circumstances. It follows the complicated relationship between director Lena Macdonald and her mother, who was once a filmmaker herself, but ended up homeless, crack-addicted and on the streets. For ten years Lena filmed in the cold, hard streets of Toronto’s inner city and her story is raw, honest and unforgettable. Mom and Me is about addiction, prostitution and despair but it is also a story about family, the power of hope and the tenacity of love.

A BBC News investigation has revealed how violent criminal gangs are finding, abusing and extorting people from the LGBT community they meet online in Egypt. Using masking technology to hide the identities of the people he meets, Ahmed Shihab-Eldin navigates the complex online and real-life world of people who identify as queer and who have been repeatedly targeted by a gang with violent viral video humiliations and police arrests.

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

In her room 15 year old "Hannah" decides to start selling sex. She puts up an ad and offers her services as an escort. In her diary Hanna describes how she, over the course of an autumn sells sex in Stockholm. Hanna's first sex buyers ask no questions about her age, which is often enough to avoid being convicted of buying sex from children, claiming that it was thought that the girl was older. As the majority of sex buyers can get away with fines, police prioritize other crimes. The documentary "En eskortflickas dagbok" gives insight into a chaotic world.

Soft boys by day, kings by night. The film follows a group of young Bulgarian Roma who come to Vienna looking for freedom and a quick buck. They sell their bodies as if that's all they had. What comforts them, so far from home, is the feeling of being together. But the nights are long and unpredictable.

The world of pimping in early 1980s America offers a rare, unfiltered glimpse into a controversial underground lifestyle. Through exclusive interviews with the notorious figure “Harold” and his associates—Alice, Lori, and Karen—the film provides a nuanced exploration of the lives of pimps and streetwalkers and the ways their paths intertwine. With a focus on both the allure and inherent dangers of this lifestyle, the documentary reaches a sombre climax, shedding light on the tragic murder of Alice Franklin, one of Harold’s streetwalkers, later that same year.

Louis stays with the residents of a soon to open brothel in Nevada for a few weeks.

Portrait of the last year of the life of famous New York drag queen Consuela Cosmetic.