Girl Model Movie Trailer

Posted by Charmaine Blake on Aug 28th, 2012 in Documentary | 0 comments

Girl Model Movie Trailer

Girl Model is an upcoming documentary film that will feature the struggles of models in the world. How each girl tries to make to the runway to be able to provide for their families and themselves. Girl Model shows the story through the accounts of a 13 year old girl from Siberia and her American scout who discovers her. The complexity of this industry is featured in the documentary to see how models seek out their fortune abroad to delve into the world of modelling. Girl Model is directed by and written by Ashley Sabid and David Redmon.

“Girl Model: A Documentary That Reveals The Struggle of Young Models

Nadya Vall is on the balcony of a Tokyo building, pressing a cellphone to her ear, straining through the crackly connection to hear the voice of her mother, who is back home in Siberia.

The 13-year-old, who’s trying to eke out a living as a model to support her family, breaks down in tears. Despite numerous casting calls, there has been no work and she’s broke.

“Home,” she says through sniffles. “I want to go home.”

It’s one of many poignant scenes in the documentary Girl Model , a behind-the-scenes exploration of an unregulated industry, told from the perspective of scouts, agencies and models.

The film, which took more than three years to make, opens Friday in Toronto at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema and runs until April 18. Rachel Blais, 26, a Montreal model who is featured in the film and is critical of the industry, will be at the opening night screening for a panel discussion.

Blais was working in Tokyo when she met the filmmakers, David Redmon and Ashley Sabin, as they followed Nadya on her journey. Since the film’s premiere at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival , Blais has begun to advocate for models’ rights.

Blais, who has travelled the world as a modelsince age 17 and has appeared in Vogue, Elleand Harper’s Bazaar, says working conditions for some young models is akin to child labour.

“In the West, we say (child labour) is not right, yet we’re doing the same thing by putting these girls in the magazines,” says Blais.

The models work long hours without breaks, are occasionally unpaid or paid only in kind, miss or quit school and often go without parental supervision.

“It’s a part of modelling that’s not talked about at all,” says Blais. “The young girls, who are travelling the world to represent the image of the perfect woman when they’re still children.”

Girl Model focuses on Russian girls in Japan, but the issues raised in the documentary are industry-wide, says Blais. When she was 18, she lived in New York City, trying to survive on $120 a week and forced to borrow rent money from her agency.

Some of the problems in the modelling world made headlines in February, when models in the U.S. launched Model Alliance. The non-profit rights group seeks workplace standards to address some of the issues raised in the film, including child labour laws.

“Because the modelling industry is crossing so many different borders, and all the laws are different, there’s not a unified force that’s regulating (the industry),” Sabin told the Star. “They’re self-regulating and that’s extremely problematic when you’re dealing with youth.”

The rest of the article can be read at The Star

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Charmaine Blake loves movies, musical theater listening to music and taking pictures of anything that she finds interesting. She is a voracious reader and writer, and enjoys her time writing for New Movie Launches. Charmaine loves spending time with her pets and currently has a Siberian Husky, a toy poodle and a cat.