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Ève Lamont’s Le commerce du sexe kicks off open-air screenings in the Quartier des spectacles on Tuesday, June 14

PRESS RELEASE
09/06/2016

DVD LCS

Co-produced by Les Productions du Rapide-Blanc and the NFB, feature doc offers timely look at the sex trade as disturbing stories about the industry continue to make headlines

June 10, 2016 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

Ève Lamont’s documentary feature The Sex Trade (Le commerce du sexe), co-produced by Productions du Rapide-Blanc and the NFB, will open the 11th season of Downtown Screenings under the Stars at Place de la Paix: a free series of 13 screenings presented by the Société des arts technologiques (SAT), the Montreal borough of Ville-Marie and the Quartier des spectacles Partnership, in collaboration with CIBL-FM. The series will kick off on Tuesday, June 14, at 8:45 p.m., with the filmmaker, CLES (Concertation des luttes contre l’exploitation sexuelle) communications head Éliane Legault-Roy, and host Nicholas Bergeron in attendance. The film will be shown in its original French version and followed by a Q&A session.

A troubling, in-depth look at the underside of the sex trade and the issues it raises, Le commerce du sexe offers unique insights into the mechanisms of sexual exploitation in Quebec. Lamont explored the plight of women struggling to leave the sex trade in L’imposture (2010), and for her latest doc she met with various players in the sex industry: current and former pimps, women taking part in prostitution, massage parlour owners, a police officer, a sociologist, a renowned investigative journalist, and several johns. Wide-ranging and incisive, the film re-examines an activity that’s frequently trivialized, even glorified.

The doc recently completed a resoundingly successful tour of Quebec, with 37 screenings in 22 cities between September 2015 and April 2016. Released in cinemas in May 2015, it also screened at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois, the Outaouais Film Festival, Vues sur mer de Gaspé (where Lamont was honorary president) and Femmes en résistance in Arcueil, France. Le commerce du sexe received a 2015 Media Award from children’s rights advocacy organization Beyond Borders ECPAT Canada.

Le commerce du sexe is now available across Canada in download-to-own (DTO) and video-on-demand (VOD) formats at NFB.ca and the iTunes Store. DVD copies of the film can also be purchased at NFB.ca or by phone at 1-800-267-7710.

Co-produced by Nicole Hubert and Sylvie Van Brabant (Les Productions du Rapide-Blanc) and Nathalie Cloutier (NFB), with executive producer Colette Loumède (NFB).

About the filmmaker

A seasoned director and camerawoman, Ève Lamont is a free spirit who explores social issues that are often overlooked. Beginning with her first feature documentary, Méchante job (2001), she has consistently made socially engaged films (The Fight for True Farming in 2005, L’imposture in 2010) that give a voice to people living on the fringes of consumer society. In 2003, her film Squat! won the Best Direction – Canadian Feature Documentary award at Hot Docs in Toronto. Her latest work, Le commerce du sexe, is a behind-the-scenes foray into the sex industry, a clandestine world fraught with serious social repercussions.

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