CU Film Studies Professor Examines Trafficking In New Film

Jan. 6, 2006, A new film by a University of Colorado at Boulder professor designed to raise awareness of child exploitation in the global sex trade, will be shown in a sneak preview on Jan. 13 at Boulder’s Dairy Center for the Arts.

“Sita, A Girl From Jambu,” produced by Assistant Professor Kathleen Man of the CU-Boulder film studies department, will be shown Jan. 13 at 6:30 p.m. at the Dairy Center for the Arts, 2590 Walnut St. The viewing will benefit “Free A Child,” a Boulder-based non-profit organization helping to combat human trafficking and modern-day slavery. Tickets are $15 and can be ordered online at www.thedairy.org.

“Sita” is the story of a young teenage girl from a remote village in Nepal who dreams of marriage and a family but whose desperate circumstances lead her, like thousands of other Nepalese girls, to the world of child trafficking and sexual slavery.

“In Nepal, approximately 7,000 young children are kidnapped, tricked or sold to Indian brothels each year, most of them girls between the ages of 10 and 14,” said Man. “This film seeks to educate audiences about the root causes of child exploitation in the global sex trade.”

Man also plans to show “Sita” at the 2006 Boulder International Film Festival in February and at the Hawaii International Film Festival in April.

The 50-minute film was shot entirely on location in Nepal in 2004. Man worked with non-actors and filmed in remote villages.

To help capture the gritty nature of the topic, Man used a narrative documentary style of filmmaking known as cinéma vérité. This unconventional yet engaging style combines both fictional and documentary elements and helps to better portray the problem of human trafficking, said Man.

“I decided to use a Nepalese girls’ performance of their own play called ”Bichari Sita,“ which means ’poor Sita’ in English, as an anchor in the overall narrative structure to give a unique look at how adolescent Nepalese girls perceive their position in this issue and how they subsequently take action,” said Man. “I combined the play with a more conventional narrative element of the film that brings us out of the street drama and into the personal world of targeted girls.”

A native of Hawaii, Man is an award-winning independent filmmaker who earned a master of fine arts degree in Film and Video Production from the University of Iowa. In 1999, as a Fulbright Fellow in Paris, she made “L’Entretien,” an award-winning French-language short film that appeared in more than 20 international festivals.

“Sita” is Man’s first feature-length film. She has been on the CU-Boulder faculty since 2001 teaching directing, cinematography, editing and screenwriting.

Last summer, Man finished another short film titled, “Kind of a Blur.” The film features Sandra Oh, one of the stars of the 2004 Academy Award winning comedy “Sideways.” Man was the film’s producer and director of photography.

“Kind of a Blur” has been selected to show at the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival, the Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films and the Mill Valley Film Festival.

To learn more about “Sita, A Girl From Jambu” visit the film’s Web site at http://www.sitaagirlfromjambu.com/cc.html.

Contact Information

Kathleen Man

University of Colorado

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