The Human Network

It garnered critical acclaim for its gritty storytelling and has been the Official Selection at the Seattle International Film Festival, and the Los Angeles Film festival. On July 17, this Thursday, Sold won the audience award at the London Indian Film Festival.

The 90-minute film features Lakshmi, a girl from a village in Nepal who leaves for India to work as a domestic help. But she ends up being sold to a brothel in Kolkata. The narrative looks at how she is ultimately rescued and the people involved in her freedom.

For most part, the film was shot outside Sonagachi (since filming is prohibited in the red light district). “For the first three years, we did not make any headway in our research. But later, we met prostitutes, visited the red light district and studied similar documentaries. We had a guide who took us to these areas discreetly,” says Brown, who was drawn to this subject after watching the 2004 award-winning documentary Born into Brothels by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman.

“What compelled me about Born into Brothels was the children’s creativity. They reminded me of children I have met across the world. They did not seem crushed by their surroundings. Their tenacity inspired me to make a film even more,” he says. The names of characters are entirely fictional in the book and film and Brown has taken creative liberties in depicting the protagonist, Lakshmi’s tale, portrayed brilliantly by 12-year-old Nepalese newcomer Niyar Saikia.

An international cast helped, which included Gillian Anderson, David Arquette (whom Brown met while co-directing Pontiac Moon), Seema Biswas, Priyanka Bose and Parambrata Chatterjee, among others. Emma Thompson (President of the Helen Bamber Foundation that helps survivors of human trafficking) also came on board a few months into post production.

Brown’s aim was to reach out to the larger global community. “A lot of our investors engaged with this film. An organisation called StolenYouth has invested US $ 1.6 million to help four organisations working with trafficked children in Seattle. Childreach International have partnered with us too. They will be helping 30,000 girls in Nepal stay in school,” says Brown, who has contacted organisations in India like New Light, that works with educating children of prostitutes in Kalighat, West Bengal.
With an India release hopefully next year, Brown is eager to make his second feature: on girls trafficked from orphanages.