The Territory of Sex Work

THE TERRITORY OF SEX WORK – ?SAMIRA? & ?BECKY?S JOURNEY?
Venue | Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Atelierhaus, Lehargasse 8, 1060 Wien, 2. OG Mehrzwecksaal
Screening of Samira, by and with director Nick Mai and Becky?s Journey, by and with director Sine Plambech.

“Samira” by Nick Mai
These two films shed light on the territory of sex work in the realm of migration and Europe’s migration policy. They adopt different aesthetic and methodological approaches to portray the complex experiences, subjectivities, and trajectories of migrants working in the global sex industry.

Samira
by Nicola Mai
2013, 28 min
Samira tells a story about Karim, an Algerian migrant man selling sex at night in Marseille. He left Algerai as a young man as his breast started developing as a result of taking hormones. Ten years later Kari mist granted asylum in France as a transgender woman, Samira, thanks to his breast, which allow him to defend his asylum application as that of a transgender women risking her life if deported back to Algeria. Twenty years later, as his father is dying and he is about to become the head of the family, Samira surgically removes her breasts to return to Algeria to assume his new role.

Becky’s Journey
by Sine Plambech
2014, 25 min
Becky’s Journey (2014) is about Becky, a 26 year old Nigerian woman from Benin City who made two attempts to go to Europe to sell sex. The first time she was intercepted with counterfeit documents in the airport in Lagos, Nigeria, by immigration authorities. This made her decide to begin a deadly journey through the Sahara desert hoping to embark on a smuggler boat bound for Italy. The film is about migration, sex work and human trafficking seen from the perspective of Becky. We meet Becky as she contemplates what to do next.