The Whistleblower: Amplifying the Reality of Human Trafficking

Sexual trafficking. It's hard for people to wrap their minds around the scope of the problem. A new film, The Whistleblower, presents an on the ground retelling of the story of Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz), a Nebraskan police officer who became part of the United Nations police team in post-war Bosnia. Hired by Democra, a government contractor that recruited candidates, she uncovered a trafficking operation that reached to the highest echelons of power.

The movie is structured in a style reminiscent of the 1980s Costa-Gavrasnarratives. The dramatization is based on actual events. Some characters have been merged, with names and timelines changed for the sake of a streamlined plot. One of the anchoring characters is Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave), who was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Bosnia.

Shot in palettes of blues and browns, the facts are laid out as Bolkovac -- who is of Croatian descent -- takes her belief in "doing her job" into the field. After ten years of experience on the domestic violence beat back home, Bolkovac finds herself up against a web of corrupt players ranging from local police and United Nations peacekeepers, to State Department brass and Democra bigwigs.

Bolkovac discovers that the area's bars and clubs are serving as a front to sites where girls from the Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe have been enslaved. Many of the girls being sold to an international clientele are between 12 and 15 years old.

The story's trajectory follows Bolkovac (who served as a story consultant) from her discovery of trafficking corruption, complicity, and cover-ups through her efforts to report her findings--despite files of evidence disappearing and witness tampering. Death threats are the precursor to her being fired, when she gets too close to the truth. The multilayered cover-up finally sees the light of day when she files a wrongful dismissal case against Democra, and feeds the information from her findings to the British press.

Director Larysa Kondracki spent time with her co-writer in Eastern Europe doing background research. There are two key scenes that speak volumes. One is revelatory, the other is searing. In the former, Bolkovac--and the audience--begin to understand the magnitude of what she is up against as she scrutinizes the first photos and bits of information she had pinned to her office wall. The camera pulls back to show how the original findings have grown exponentially. The latter is an indelible image of one of the girls being raped, tortured and killed in front of the others, as an example of why compliance is the only way to survive.

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival showcased the New York premiere of The Whistleblower in June. HRW has done extensive work documenting post-war abuse in the Balkans. Their website article "Bosnia and Herzegovina: Traffickers Walk Free" gives an overview of the material covered in the movie. In addition, they issued a report in 2002 that breaks down their findings into twelve comprehensive sections.

I interviewed Kondracki by e-mail to get additional insights about her vision and aspirations for the movie. She explained that as a Ukrainian Canadian, the issue of sex trafficking was widely discussed within her community. When she read Bolkovac's book, The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman's Fight for Justice, she was overwhelmed by the breadth of the crime of trafficking. She was surprised that a film had not already been made.

What made you decide to do the movie as an indie film? Did you think it would give you more latitude to portray the story as you best saw fit?

To be honest, I didn't see another way. We set out to do it. We spent some time in studios, which was a valuable experience and I think the script was improved when we were there. But ultimately, this was the way that made sense. That's where I have to hand it to the producers. Once we got the project out, we were shooting within nine months.

Do you see the film reaching people about the issue of human trafficking in a way that a news story or article cannot? Are you hoping that the "political thriller" tag will pull people in, which might otherwise be afraid of the subject matter?

Absolutely. Kathy's story is practically a Robert Ludlum novel. Sex, scandal, corruption, governments, international cover-ups. It's something you would usually make up. Our primary goal was to make a good thriller with a great character at the center. Is she going to get the girl? Are they going to get our heroine?

Was it Bolkovac's experience with domestic violence in the United States, combined with how she got a conviction on her first time at bat in Bosnia, that made Madeleine Rees reach out to her?

Yes. That conviction made Kathy really stand out.

How did you decide how far to go with graphically showing the abuse and torture of the trafficked girls?

I wasn't going to make this movie and not be realistic. But I also had no intention of deterring audiences. We tested it several times, and found the right balance. You don't see anything. It's not unlike Silence of the Lambs in a way. It's what's inferred.

How is the United Nations dealing with the film? I understand there was an internal memo that was circulated that advocated a "no comment" policy. Does that suggest that they haven't learned anything from their experience about transparency?
The internal memo left it at the UN being split. But we have learned from sources that they are sticking with a "damage control" policy. I really have no idea what they've learned, and why they aren't seizing the opportunity not only to right these wrongs, but in doing so, to gain some faith from so many cynics that are watching. Show us you want to be the organization you're meant to be. I've written a letter to Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, and we have offered to screen the film wherever and whenever they want. So far...No Comment.

cultureID specifically deals with connecting those doing cultural work with political and social intent/content with audiences. How do you see The Whistleblower within this context?
I genuinely believe that films have one of the loudest voices. And I believe that if we can get this story into public discourse, the State Department and the United Nations will be embarrassed. Hopefully, enough to do something. Look at Guantanamo, extraordinary renditions...I'm not saying that's done with, but at least they aren't snatching people in plain sight out of airports anymore. Same thing here. U.S. tax dollars should not be going to the buying and selling of girls. Period. There's no grey area to that.

This article originally appeared on the site cultureID..

 

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American in Bosnia Discovers the Horrors of Human Trafficking

By STEPHEN HOLDENMore About This Movie Published: August 4, 2011

In the lineage of real-life David-and-Goliath movies in which intrepid seekers of the truth investigate malfeasance in high places, “The Whistleblower” deserves an honorable mention. This earnest film may not be as dramatically coherent or as gripping as “Serpico,” “All the President’s Men,” “Erin Brockovich” and “Silkwood,” to name four much-decorated Hollywood prototypes. But its revelations are, if anything, more devastating and far more immediate than the dirty deeds uncovered in those predecessors.

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Vanessa Redgrave, who has a cameo role in the film.

The directorial debut of the Canadian filmmaker Larysa Kondracki, this grueling exposé of human trafficking in postwar Bosnia teeters in an uneasy balance between quasi-documentary and fiction. Its most sickening moment shows the rape and torture of a rebellious young prostitute smuggled from Ukraine into a Bosnian backwoods brothel while other young “whores of war,” as one character dismisses human trafficking victims, are forced to watch.

But for all its high-mindedness, “The Whistleblower,” filmed largely in Romania, has a choppy, fumbling screenplay (by Ms. Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan) that lurches between shrill editorializing and vagueness while sorting through more characters than it can comfortably handle or even readily identify.

As Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz), the movie’s slingshot-toting American heroine, marches into a political minefield, she seems strangely immune to danger until near the end of the film. “The Whistleblower” ultimately fizzles by withholding any cathartic sense that justice was done, or ever will be done, once Kathryn spills the beans to the British news media.

When the story begins, she is a police officer and a divorced mother living in Lincoln, Neb. Prevented from transferring to Atlanta to be nearer to her daughter, she impulsively accepts a lucrative job as a United Nations peacekeeping officer in Bosnia in 1999. The blunt, fearless Kathryn embraces her new job with a gusto that immediately raises eyebrows among her cynical co-workers, who look down at the Eastern Europeans they have been charged to help.

Ms. Weisz’s feisty performance is the strongest element of “The Whistleblower.” She imbues Kathryn with the same stubborn-verging-on-fanatical zeal that Rose Byrne (whom Ms. Weisz physically resembles) brings to her character, Ellen Parsons, in the television series “Damages,” with which “The Whistleblower” shares a strain of paranoia.

After demonstrating her mettle in prosecuting a case of domestic violence, Kathryn is offered a job in the United Nations Gender Affairs Office, working with the police to investigate rape, domestic abuse and sex trafficking. Her gumption earns her the admiration of Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave, in a cameo), the head of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, who remains an enigmatic, undeveloped character. The party-loving Kathryn also begins a casual affair with Jan (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), a fellow peacekeeping officer.

Kathryn comes face to face with the truth when she journeys to a bar in the countryside, where she discovers a nest of imprisoned young prostitutes who are so frightened that they refuse to talk to her. When she reports back to her smirking boss, Fred Murray (David Hewlett), and he mockingly asks her if she’s “going Columbo,” she realizes that he is part of a conspiracy of silence among her male co-workers. Even Laura Leviani (Monica Bellucci), the chilly head of the repatriation program, is of no help: she insists that bureaucratic rules leave her unable to rescue prostitutes whose passports have been confiscated by their kidnappers.

As Kathryn gathers evidence, including Abu Ghraib-like snapshots of the girls and their johns, a fuller picture begins to emerge of a lucrative, far-reaching operation involving the police and United Nations peacekeepers, many of them protected by diplomatic immunity. The more noise she makes to United Nations higher-ups, the more apparent it becomes that she is viewed as a troublemaking nuisance, and her job is terminated.

The movie concentrates on Kathryn’s efforts to coax two terrified Ukrainian girls, Raya (Roxana Condurache) and her best friend, Irka (Rayisa Kondracki, the director’s sister), to identify their kidnappers. Kathryn recklessly promises Raya protection if she agrees to talk, with dire consequences. Near the end of “The Whistleblower,” a scene is awkwardly inserted in which Raya’s mother discovers that immediate family members sold her daughter into slavery.

Kathryn is so outraged by her discoveries that she has no room for panic. Her lack of caution suggests that only someone blindly immune to intimidation would rattle so many cages without fearing for her life. Some of the horrors in the book Ms. Bolkovac wrote about her experiences, including the fact that many of the trafficked girls were much younger than those shown in the movie, are softened.

Kathryn’s only ally is Peter Ward (David Strathairn, in ominously brooding, conspiratorial mode), an internal affairs specialist who, in the film’s most suspenseful scene, helps her smuggle evidence out of her office.

“The Whistleblower” tells a story so repellent that it is almost beyond belief. Its conclusion — that in the moral quagmire of war and its aftermath, human trafficking and corruption are collateral damage — is unutterably depressing.

“The Whistleblower” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has a graphic rape, brutalization and strong language.

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this review misstated the title of the film at one point. “The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman’s Fight for Justice” is the title of Kathryn Bolkovac’s book about her experiences. The review also referred incorrectly to the film. While the director is Canadian, the movie is a Canadian-German co-production, not a Canadian film.