Hollywood hasn’t done a particularly good job of documenting the issue of sexual trafficking. More often than not — as in the case of 2009’s Taken — the global crime is used as a backdrop to an American protagonist’s quest for retributive justice. Some movies have attempted to explore the crime’s complexities, but have typically failed to produce high-quality cinema that appeals to the masses regardless of background knowledge or interest in the issue.
Larysa Kondracki, director and co-writer of The Whistleblower, has seen all those films. One factor she noted while watching them, aside from the overwhelming “ooh-rah” spirit of the cinema, was the fact that they focused on the supply side of the issue. The story of the victims was thoroughly explained but the demand generated by men for sex tended to be ignored.
“Those movies taught me why I wanted to take it from the other side,” says Kondracki, who marks her directorial debut with this film.
Upon discovering the story of Kathryn Bolkovac — which The Whistleblower is based on — Kondracki realized that she had found a way to explore the demand side of the issue in a compelling and realistic way.
Bolkovac, played by Rachel Weisz, was a police officer from Nebraska who served as a contracted United Nations human rights investigator in Bosnia. After being assigned to lead the gender affairs unit for the organization’s mission in Bosnia, she unveiled a massive sex trafficking ring — one in which contracted peacekeepers and police officers were not only using the exploited woman for sex, but were also assisting in the trafficking of them. The evidence that she compiled was denied and the files were closed by the UN, and Bolkovac was eventually fired for “falsifying time sheets.”
“I wanted to look at why sexual trafficking is happening,” says Kondracki, who was born in Toronto and studied English in Montreal. “Kathy’s story was a great thriller, where you could throw in one or two really heavy scenes.”
In 2003, Kondracki managed to track Bolkovac down in an online chatroom; the director eventually secured the rights to Bolkovac’s life story for $100 after promising not to glamourize or whitewash it. But recording the narrative of Bolkovac’s life was only the beginning. Over the next two years, Kondracki and her co-writer, Eilis Kirwan, travelled throughout Europe, visiting underground safe houses, speaking with UN officials, collecting paperwork and interviewing trafficking victims and their families.
“The thing with a lot of the girls that we met is that there’s a real kind of strength in them,” Kondracki says. “The last thing they want is for you to be looking at them with shame or feeling sorry for them. You feel like a total creep, first of all, for asking all of the questions. But you also walk away feeling empowered and with a bit of sense of responsibility. I know that it sounds so cheesy.”
The film — which had an $8-million budget — was shot in Romania in 34 days over a span of six weeks, which Kondracki refers to as a television-paced production. The shortest day of shooting was 14 hours. The director explains that the reason that high-profile actors such as Weisz were willing to take such significant pay cuts and time-induced pressures was because of the significance and realism of the story.
“I was very blessed with really professional actors,” the director says. “They were more than movie stars. They were actors first. If Rachel had had one diva moment we would have been dead.”
Last month, the director received a letter from the secretary general of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, who expressed regret at the role the international organization played in the horrors that the film depicts. The UN also recently announced that it will be screening the movie — which obviously doesn’t portray the organization in the best light — next month at its New York headquarters.
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