This week in movies you missed: Who are those girls in the glossy photos — not the supermodels, but the other ones? Where do they come from? How old are they? What do they earn? A documentary peers into one dark corner of the modeling industry.
What You Missed
In Siberia, teenagers flock to a modeling casting call. They all dream of a contract and a ticket to Tokyo.
Ashley Arbaugh, a model scout, is searching for young, “fresh,” malleable girls to send to Japan. She finds one: an ethereal 13-year-old from a small village named Nadya Vall. The contract promises Nadya two modeling jobs and at least $8000, so her parents, who aren’t well off, agree to send her off on her own.
No one meets Nadya at the Tokyo airport. She speaks no Japanese or English. When she finally makes her way to her housing, she discovers she’s already in debt to her employer, who will put her on a plane back to Russia if her waist expands by a single centimeter.
Filmmakers David Redmon and Ashley Sabin follow Nadya as she tries to navigate the cold metropolis, then return to Arbaugh — back in the U.S. — who has harsh words for her own profession.
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