ANONYMOUSLY YOURS International Documentary Competition

Pig-tailed and bubbly, Zu Zu first appears to be an average teenager. Then she tells of the abduction that twisted her childhood into a succession of chilling abuses.

Sold for prostitution, drug-dealing and even as a bound-and gagged food source for a leech farm, Zu Zu’s life is not uncommon among the 40 million female prostitutes currently held captive in South East Asia. Her grim story is just one of four in this gut-wrenching investigation into human trafficking. The footage director Gayle Ferraro uncovers is so damaging to the reputations of the governments involved that she had to smuggle it out, the finished documentary is a harsh study in both inhumanity and victim behavior. Pushed past grief into a placid shock, the women speak dispassionately of being locked up and beaten. In the same breath, however, they confide their dreams of buying a house or becoming a movie star.

ANONYMOUSLY YOURS gives voices to these broken girls, finally allowing their stories to be told.