I Am Slave (2010)

A thriller set in London's slave trade and centered on a woman's fight for freedom.

Director:

Gabriel Range

Writer:

Jeremy Brock (screenplay)

Stars:

Wunmi Mosaku, Isaach De Bankolé, Lubna Azabal

2 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Wunmi Mosaku	...	Malia
Isaach De Bankolé	...	Bah
Lubna Azabal
Yigal Naor	...	Said
Hiam Abbass
Nonso Anozie
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Nyokabi Gethaiga	...	Hana
Nasser Memarzia	...	Ibrahim
Selva Rasalingam	...	Amir
Amaar Sardharwalla	...	Assi
Jameel Sardharwalla	...	Rami

Storyline

Based on the real-life experiences of Mende Nazer,the story unfolds as twelve-year-old Malia,daughter of champion wrestler Bah,is abducted from her Sudanese village in the Nubar Mountains by pro-government Arab militia and sold into slavery to a woman in Khartoum,who beats her for touching her daughter. After six years she is sent to London,where her name is changed,but her miserable life of servitude continues. Her passport is taken and she is told that her father will die if she goes to the authorities. Fortunately she meets a sympathetic person who seems to offer her the hope of escape and reunion with Bah,back in Sudan. For all the film's optimism an end title states that there are around 5,000 'slave' workers currently in Britain.

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Plot Keywords:

slave | sudan | village | sudanese | slavery | 

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Genres:

Thriller

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Details

Country:

UK

Release Date:

10 January 2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

Eimai sklava

Filming Locations:

Kenya

Company Credits

Production Co:

Altered Image, Borough Picture Company, Potboiler Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

82 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

Malia: Time is whatever it wants to be. Once I was 12, now I'm 18. What if all of those years were just a moment? What if time could blink and all of those years were gone?

User Reviews

Fittingly bleak depiction of modern day slavery

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

When a young girl, a princess in the African village she comes from, is abducted and sold as a slave at a very young age, she finds the formative years of her adult life spent being exploited by doing hours and hours of work, for little to no pay, finally ending up being used by a foreign diplomat and his wife, with her passport taken from her and a stark warning to remain indoors unless told she may leave. Trapped in this impossibly desperate situation, she may finally be about to find an unexpected means of escape.

Preceded by an eye opening real life expose of modern 'domestic slavery' in Britain, where desperate immigrants are largely exploited by foreign diplomats, this drama from Channel 4 is largely drawn from real life experiences and serves as a stark expose of what's going on under our noses with very little entertainment value. That said, it's a very well made film, perfectly capturing an atmosphere of isolation, tension and hopelessness. Though it's largely silent, the expression of the lead actress captures more than a million words. All together, though, it doesn't quite get under the skin of it's subject quite as much as it could, but it's still quite an effective piece with a lot of food for thought. ***