Very Young Girls

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“Lucky ones get a chance at a normal life”

Very Young Girls is an expose of human trafficking that follows thirteen and fourteen year old American girls as they are seduced, abused, and sold on New York’s streets by pimps, and treated as adult criminals by police. The film follows the barely-adolescent girls in real time, using vérité and intimate interviews with them as they are first lured on to the streets and the dire events which follow. The film also uses startling footage shot by the brazen pimps themselves giving a rare glimpse into how the cycle of street life begins for

Film Festivals

Toronto International

Film Festival

Toronto, Canada

September 6 – 15, 2007

World Premiere

True/False Film Festival

Columbia, Missouri

February 28 – March 2, 2008

U.S. Premiere

Miami International

Film Festival

Miami, Florida

February 29 – March 9, 2008

Independent Film

Festival Boston

Boston, Massachusetts

April 23 – 29, 2008

Indie Spirit Film Festival

Colorado Springs, Colorado

April 25 – 27, 2008

Jackson Hole Film Festival

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

June 5 – 9, 2008

Edinburgh International

Film Festival

Edinburgh, Scotland

June 18 – 29, 2008

Jerusalem Film Festival

Jerusalem

July 10 – 19, 2008

Warsaw Film Festival

Warsaw, Poland

October 10 - 19, 2008

Edinburgh Guide : Film festival review, June 23 2008

VERY YOUNG GIRLS

Press praise from the

2007 Toronto International Film Festival

“Bold and brave, a deeply felt exposé of prostitution among the barely adolescent in urban America. A substantial work of muckraking.”

-- Boston Phoenix

“As sincere as it is heartbreaking …indicts not only the direct exploiters but also a society that jails 15-year-old girls for prostitution.”

-- Vanity Fair

“Immediately gripping … continually unsettling”

-- Indiewire

“Searing”

-- Philadelphia Daily News

“Devastating”

-- New York Press

Film Credits / Biographies

Co Executive Producer

Rachel Lloyd is the founder and Executive Director of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), the only non-profit in New York state serving domestically trafficked youth and commercially sexually exploited girls and young women. Under Ms. Lloyd’s leadership, GEMS annually serves 200 girls through its direct services and 1,000 youth through education and outreach. Ms. Lloyd is a nationally recognized advocate and expert on the issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children, actively involved in the effort to pass legislation to protect this population in addition to speaking at events and conferences across the nation. Ms. Lloyd has been honored with the Reebok Human Rights Award and the Frederick Douglas Award from the North Star Fund, among others. Ms. Lloyd received her Bachelors in Psychology from Marymount Manhattan College and her Masters in Applied Urban Anthropology from the City College of New York.

Producer and Director

David Schisgall has been producing and directing long-form nonfiction for the past fifteen years. David began his career working for documentarian Errol Morris, assisting on A Brief History of Time (1991), Fast Cheap and Out of Control (1997), and Mr. Death (1999), and producing Errol’s television series for Bravo, First Person (2000). In addition to producing and directing Very Young Girls, a documentary about sexually exploited girls in New York City, for Showtime, Schisgall is also produced this year Operation Filmmaker, for ITVS and BBC’s Storyville. Operation Filmmaker follows an Iraqi film student as he is brought to the west by Liev Shreiber. Both films had their world premiere at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.

In October 2005, David was honored with the Edward R. Murrow award for Best News Documentary of 2004. He received the award for his program on young Americans and Iraqis at war, True Life: I’m in Iraq, which aired on MTV and around the world. It was the first time in its fifty-year history that the award was given to a network other than HBO, CNN, PBS, or the original three broadcast networks. The film was also chosen as one of the best television documentaries of the year by the Museum of Film and Television

The Iraq work followed another hour for MTV, True Life: I Live in the Terror Zone, about young Israelis and Palestinians on the West Bank. The program was honored by Senator Edward Kennedy at the Khalil Gibran Spirit of Humanity Award, given by the Arab-American Institute; and was the only non-Israeli film about the Israel/Palestine conflict shown at Israel’s national festival, the Jerusalem Film Festival

In 2006, David developed the radio show This American Life into a television series for Showtime. He also created and directed a pilot for MTV about young people in war zones for MTV. David lives in New York City with his wife Evgenia Peretz, and their four-year-old son Elias and infant daughter Daphne.

Co-Director and Producer

After graduating from Columbia University in 2003, Priya Swaminathan (producer/co-director) began developing and associate producing projects with David Schisgall that took her from mental hospitals in America to the tsunami ravaged Sri Lankan coastline to the homes of former child soldiers in Colombia. She currently lives in Los Angeles and works as the Director of Development at Spike Jonze, Jeff Tremaine, and Johnny Knoxville's production company.

Co-Director and Producer

Nina Alvarez (producer/co-director) worked with David and Priya as producer on Crisis, our series for MTV about young people in war zones. In 2005, Nina was awarded the Johns Hopkins University/Gates Foundation International Reporting Fellowship, during which she shot in Nigeria for a documentary about women’s lack of access to safe births. Nina won Emmy and Imagen awards during fifteen years of producing news and documentaries for such outlets as ABC News’, Nightline, NBC News, Univision, and National Public Radio during which time she reported from Iraq, Palestine, Cuba, Colombia, El Salvador, and Africa. She directed and shot Head to Head, a five part documentary series about competition in the US, for the Discovery Channel.

Very Young Girls Press Coverage

The New York Times : Movie Review, Critics Pick July 4, 2008

The New York Sun : Arts+ July 3, 2008

The New York Times : N.Y./Region July 3, 2008

Girls Educational & Mentoring Services

(212) 926-8089 · info@gems-girls.org · www.gems-girls.org

many women. The film identifies hope for these girls in the organization GEMS (Girls Education and Mentoring Services), a recovery center founded and run by Rachel Lloyd, herself a survivor of sexual exploitation. She and her staff are heroic and relentless in their mission to help girls sent by the court or found on the street. Given a chance to piece their lives back together, some will e edge of two different worlds consistently battling the force that will suck them back into the underground. Very Young Girls’ unprecedented access to girls and pimps will change the way law enforcement, the media, and society as a whole look at sexual exploitation, street prostitution and human trafficking that is happening right in our own backyard.

“Lucky ones get a chance at a normal life”

Press Coverage

On Demand, on SHOWTIME

Now through July 30, 2009

Anytime on Demand

Watch the documentary on SHOWTIME in your home with friends and family in honor of GEMS and receive your own free copy of “Very Young Girls,” along with other GEMS Goodies!

Film Festivals

Click Here for the Full Screening Packet!

Film Credits / Biographies

Synopsis