There are possibly 21 million victims of human trafficking worldwide. Thousands — possibly hundreds of thousands — of those victims become slaves of sex trafficking in the U.S. Repeatedly these statistics are reported and met with awe and disbelief. It’s a message that’s difficult to process because the compassionate image is hidden in darkness. Now a short film seeks to expose that harsh reality to the world.
“Only Light” captures the story of a girl kidnapped and held captive as a sex slave in the middle of California’s suburbs. The short film is driven by the starkly different perceptions of a victim of trafficking and her carefree peer next door.
Writer Thembi Banks, like many in the SVU generation, has long-held an interest in sex crimes. Film school was just the platform she needed to express her views on the epidemic. “I wanted to write a short about it, and tell a beautiful yet powerful story from a unique perspective,” says Banks in an email.
Although the evidence of trafficking has been presented numerous ways, Banks realized the films with the theme often left out the cases involving African countries such as Democratic Republic of the Congo, and how close to home the issue can come when you shift focus to the US.
“As American women, we often take our freedoms for granted,” Bank says. “In some countries the threat of rape and kidnap is a daily fear. We don’t live our lives the same way and it seems almost unimaginable what these women go through.”
It’s a set of circumstances director Evita Castine had yet to fully comprehend.
“I thought I knew about human trafficking before working on ‘Only Light,'” says Castine in an email. “But I learned a lot more when I started the research because specificity is really important to me.”
Determined to deliver the most authentic production of Banks’s script, Castine submerged herself in the brutality of the flesh trade. Beyond the unsettling statistics, she studied the psychology of the issue, even seeking out a Congolese pastor whose specialization in cultural violence helped her translate the main character’s plight.
The nuances created by Banks and Castine let audiences connect to the contrasted scenarios. “Only Light” showcases the classic angst of a first-world teen against the unimaginable predicament of her should-be equal. If their woes were weighed, the scale would be terribly unbalanced.
“I thought it would be interesting to see how two young girls from different walks of life come to terms with their sexuality at a very pivotal point in their life,” Banks says in her email. “In America where one 15-year-old girl can begin to celebrate herself, another is made to feel ashamed and almost scared of what her sexual identity may invite.”
To exemplify this, Castine got creative in her storytelling. “I wanted to visually express how people might be thinking or feeling,” she says. “I wanted to look at the strangeness that comes from being in a foreign country and culture.”
Dampening the visual but never obscuring the message, the director channeled escapism. “I think water is a very strong visual metaphor for the mind and consciousness and an opening to your deeper self,” says Castine.
Selected to be shown alongside films that speak to the Black Lives Matter movement as part of this year’s Diversity in Cannes Short Film Showcase, “Only Light” shed light on this issue on a main stage. (Winners were announced yesterday.)
At the renowned French festival, Castine had the opportunity to speak on the global atrocity, which yields absurdly lucrative returns, depicted in the film. She was interviewed by an international TV show on the topics of women in the media, gender equality and the importance of creating your own narrative.
Castine, who was drawn to the project because of the human right’s element, notes appreciation for being able to engage in meaningful conversations about her ideas on with artists worldwide.
Banks, too, is grateful for the exposure and the validation a screening at Cannes provides, for herself and for Castine, as visual artists and conveyors of this message. It’s not only a venue to garner a following, but a forum to continue the discussion of change. Especially at a time when Banks says, “the value and worth of Black lives across the globe is of great concern.”
Banks and Castine came together through an advanced graduate class at USC’s film school. Together they finalized the title, drawing inspiration from a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. “It represented to us what the solution for saving the girls and women in this situation needed — light,” says Banks.
“Only Light” is one of only three films backed by the competitive program. It has earned acclaim at festivals in Los Angeles and abroad, including the Audience Award at Diversity at Cannes.
“To know that the people you made it for see it the way you intended and thought so much to vote for it – is all that I ever could have hoped for,” says Castine in her email.
“I want that as a director – I want people to feel something, I want them to be there with me.”
See “Only Light” at May 27, 2015 at The New York International Short Film Festival. Learn more about the film at onlylightmovie.com.
