Short Films

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Human Rights in Cinema Competition

JOY

• Director: Sudabeh Mortezai
• AUSTRIA / 2018 / DCP / Colour / 100’ / English; Turkish s.t.

• Screenplay: Sudabeh Mortezai
• Director of Photography: Klemens Hufnagl
• Editing: Oliver Neumann
• Cast: Joy Anwulika Alphonsus, Precious Mariam Sanusi, Angela Ekeleme Pius, Gift Igweh, Sandra John
• Producer: Oliver Neumann, Sabine Moser
• Production Co.: Freibeuter Film
• World Sales: Netflix

- 2018 CHICAGO -- Special Jury Prize
- 2018 LES ARCS -- Grand Prize of the Jury
- 2018 LONDON -- Best Film
- 2018 MARRAKECH -- Best Film
- 2018 SEVILLE -- Best Actress (A. Alphonsus)
- 2018 VENICE -- Hearst Award, Label Europa Cinemas
- 2018 VIENNA -- Best Austrian Film

Documenting the immigrant sex workers trapped in a vicious cycle, Joy ,explores issues of money, migration, motherhood, race, and featuring extremely realistic and tough scenes involving sexual and physical violence. Joy follows its eponymous sex worker, who is a young Nigerian woman who works the streets to pay off debts to her exploiter Madame, while supporting her family in Nigeria and hoping for a better life for her little daughter in Vienna. Joy struggles to understand her role in this merciless system of exploitation when she is instructed by Madame to supervise Precious, a teenage girl fresh from Nigeria.

This film was a Meetings on the Bridge participant.