Red Lights
Red Lights
Red Lights
Red Lights
Red Lights
Sex doesn’t always come naturally...
Sex doesn’t always come naturally...
Sex doesn’t always come naturally...
Sex doesn’t always come naturally...
This campaign is closed
Red Lights
Sex doesn’t always come naturally...
Sex doesn’t always come naturally...
Sex doesn’t always come naturally...
Sex doesn’t always come naturally...
Sex doesn’t always come naturally...
Johan, a young 19-year-old Dutch boy from a provincial
village, goes to Amsterdam with some of his mates to booze, smoke grass and party in the city
of “sin.†That evening, as he and
his friends stroll through the Red Light district and gawk at the prostitutes,
his friends goad him into having sex with one. Unable to back out, he goes into
the window of Qi Ruan, a girl from
China. Once inside, he is unable to
complete the act. Instead
the two young people talk about their backgrounds and find out that their lives
are not so dissimilar.
By Doris, the Film Director
RED LIGHTS will be a short film of approximately 10 minutes, taking place in the Red Light district of Amsterdam, where prostitution has been legal, regulated and taxed by authorities for many years. There are many stereotypes of the typical Dutch sex worker as population demographics and ensuing stereotypes have changed throughout the years. In the 60’s and 70’s most sex workers were lower middle class Dutch and Belgian women. Now most of the sex work has been outsourced to foreign women from Latin America, Eastern Europe and other countries like many other “undesirable†jobs. The politics of Netherlands is becoming increasingly conservative and anti-immigration in the past 10 years after decades of liberalism that legalized soft drugs and prostitution. Laws are now being enacted to close down parts of the Red Light district and to make soft drugs illegal again. RED LIGHTS is partly a reaction to humanize foreigners and show a more positive view of legal sex work.
There are also many stereotypes of the typical clients of sex workers. Gawking tourists, drunken young men in Amsterdam for stag parties and lonely local married men looking for an escape from their mundane lives. Our imaginations fill in the rest of the story of comely women paid to fulfill any sexual request and fantasy.
But is it really like that? Is it that easy to purchase sex from a stranger and then go through with the most intimate of acts? And what if that stranger is from another country? Through an actual experience viewing the transaction between a sex worker and a client, I’ve come to the conclusion that sex work is not just about the need for physical intimacy but about the need for human closeness and understanding.
By Dijana, the Producer
For me as a producer, Red Lights
is a very relevant story in times of migration, multiculturalism and an ever
faster moving society. Times when we forget that a moment of understanding is sometimes
all we need.
Doris and I met in Amsterdam during the Binger Film Lab (www.binger.nl), a great residence for filmmakers.
We were both not native Dutch speakers and had lived at different times in Asia for different reasons where we both had found Dutch partners and moved to The Netherlands. For a few years we’ve talked about working on a project together as we had the same interests in human behaviour and motivations from the unconscious. We also love to celebrate love and life. Red Lights is a story that came out of our many conversations. With this film we wish to tell this typically "male fantasy" story through a feminine "eye."
A very crucial element of our project is that we want to INVOLVE some of the sex workers in the Amsterdam
red light district in making the film. For this we work closely with non-profit organization Voices
of Woman in Media (http://voicesofwomenmedia.org/). VOW Media aims to provide a way for marginalized communities of women to EDUCATE and EXPRESS themselves through different forms of media. The sex workers will work on the set and document
the making of the Red Lights through “a making of†video and photography as
well as consulting on the script and film.
In this way, our film will not only contribute to 'humanizing' the woman and girls behind the windows, but will actually involve them directly into telling their own stories en hopefully EMPOWER and ENCOURAGE them to tell their stories.
We believe this film is relevant and we feel confident in sending it out to many festivals as far and wide as possible.
We will also screen Red Lights from a former prostitution window in the red light district itself, so that everybody can watch our movie straight where the action happens!
What We Need & What You Get
The money that we raise with your help will be used to pay for equipment rental, location fees, insurance, and of course feeding a crew that is working for FREE! The funds will also be used to finish the post production work (editing, color grading, sound designing and all that comes with it). Then comes the marketing: posters, DVDs, T-shirts, presents.
For those who decide to donate to our project, we have assembled a few very cool rewards
Other Ways You Can Help
If you're interested in our film and you know people who might be interested as well, send them the link! Let them know about this little, delicate movie. Share this on Facebook, twitter, with friends, family, co-workers, EVERYONE! We will always be thankful for your cooperation. Make your Karma points with or without money !!
The Filmmaker
Doris Yeung directed her debut feature film 'Motherland' in 2009, a partial biographical story about an estranged lesbian woman who travels back to San Fransisco to unravel the mystery of her mother's death. She becomes increasingly drawn into a web of deception and incompetence while at the same time dealing with her own grief.
"Doris Yeung’s debut feature -- part murder mystery, part family drama and part meditation on the ambiguity of the American dream contains enough interesting elements to mark her as a filmmaker to watch."
- The Hollywood Reporter
"The Asian-American experience has rarely been better captured than in this taut, sensitively drawn murder mystery."
- Film Journal International
"A meditation on family and disillusionment" that is "sensitively conceived and written."
- New York Magazine
"Beautiful, Brooding, and Bold."
- About.com's Lesbian Life Guide
"One of the 10 best Asian American films!"
- Asia Pacific Arts magazine
http://www.motherlandmovie.com