Normal - real stories from the sex industry

Key information

Date
Time
5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Venue
Russell Square: College Buildings
Room
DLT

About this event

Professor Nicola Mai (London Metropolitan University)

How can we represent the complexity of migrants' trajectories within the global sex industry? How can we give voice to migrants while protecting their identities? How can we interrogate the politics of victimhood in representations of all migrant sex workers as either victims or villains within hegemonic fictions and documentaries on sex trafficking?

These issues and questions are at the core of Normal, a 48 minute creative documentary that brings the life stories of male, female and transgender migrants working in the sex industry to the screen. Drawing on original interviews with people working in the sex industry in Albania, Italy and the UK, documentary director and ethnographer Nicola Mai reveals their unheard stories.  The viewer is continually challenged by their words, their dreams and the lives that they lead. Actors portray all the characters in order to guarantee the anonymity and safety of the original interviewees; this approach also challenges the criteria of authenticity underpinning research, humanitarianism and documentary film-making.

Trailer

Organiser: Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies

Contact email: ch37@soas.ac.uk