London Sex Worker Film Festival seeks to challenge 'whorephobic' society

Scene from Columbian documentary Soy Negra, Soy Marica, Soy Puta

An on-the-job video of a peep show girl and a documentary about a transgender sex worker who takes in an abandoned young girl are among the films to be screened at the London Sex Worker Film Festival this Sunday.

The festival, to be held at the Rio Cinema, seeks to challenge an “intensely whorephobic society” with a programme of films made mainly by current or erstwhile sex workers.

Shorts and longer features address topics such as migration, border control, race, gender and violence.

Highlights include the feature Red Umbrella Diaries, a 90-minute documentary telling the individual stories of seven New Yorkers who work in different sectors of of the sex trade and the Columbian documentary Soy Negra, Soy Marica, Soy Puta (I’m black, I’m gay, I’m a sex worker) that follows a sex worker and lawyer who campaigns for and represents trans people and sex workers in Colombia.

Shorter works include the self-shot Diary of a Peep Show Girl, the award-winning Roxanne, in which a transgender sex worker’s life is thrown into question after she starts looking after an abandoned girl, and Becky’s Journey, about a Nigerian woman who attempts to go to Europe to sell sex in the hope of changing her life for the better.

Now in its third year, the festival will be looking to mark the 30-year anniversary of the sex worker occupation in Lyon, when sex workers occupied a church for eight days to draw attention to their lack of rights in French society.

London Sex Worker Film Festival is at Rio Cinema, 107 Kingsland High Street, E8 2PB on Sunday 8 November.

https://londonsexworkerfilmfest.wordpress.com/