Redlight Premiere

On Monday, June 21, Guy Jacobson’s new narrative documentary Red Light will premiere at the SVA Theater in NYC. Redlight follows the lives of five young women who have been exploited by child sex trafficking.

Guy Jacobson was first exposed to the global epidemic of human trafficking eight years ago while on a two-year sabbatical. He found himself alone on the streets of Cambodia surrounded by 15 young girls who were aggressively soliciting themselves for prostitution. He knew then that he had to do something to fight this problem. Jacobson’s first project was Holly which followed the life of one Vietnamese girl & her efforts to escape the trafficking world. He hoped Holly would prove that one life is all it takes to anger the public about this issue, to care about the human trafficking problem we all face. He found that film acts as a powerful medium because it engages the mass media both emotionally & visually.

The intention for Redlight is to put this issue into the minds of the media & the public to begin a movement. During the making of this film, Jacobson used hidden cameras & members of the crew had warrants out for their lives. They wanted to expose how trafficking is often going on right under our noses all the time. Redlight will have a limited theatrical release in the next few months. Jacobson hopes that September, which acts as Human Trafficking Awareness Month, will act as a catalyst to not only bring awareness but also start conversations on how to bring solutions to this problem.

RedLight Children is a non-profit that was started because of the film Redlight. RLC, unlike most trafficking non-profits, is seeking to define the cause of human trafficking & stopping the problem at its source as opposed to helping the victims who are the result of the problem. Their mission has become threefold in its quest to answer, how can this problem be tackled from an economic perspective? By raising awareness through the mass media, educating the public through school curriculums at a collegiate level & by improving current laws, creating new laws & seeing that they are enforced.

Guy Jacobson is the President of Priority Films which developed, produced & distributed Holly & Redlight. He is the founder of the non-profit RedLight & was honored for his work with them in 2008 by the U.S. State Department. Jacobson currently teaches Human Trafficking International Policy at NYU & is working on new film & television projects. For more info. & to purchase tickets to the premiere of RedLight, visit http://redlightthemovie.eventbrite.com/.

- Don Torrance