Surviving International Boulevard: Domestic Child Sex Trafficking

Ghana’s Lake Volta, the most massive man-made lake in the world, is also the site of a monumental human rights failure: the selling of area children into slavery. This riveting, gorgeously photographed documentary by Bay Area filmmakers Zachary Fink and Alyssa Fedele chronicles the brave efforts to find these children, bring them to safety, and return them to their families of origin. The film (whose makers participated in DocLands' DocPitch, 2017) features a charismatic central savior, Kwame, who survived captivity himself as a child and is determined to rescue others. A knowing score, patient editing pace, and care with close-ups allow powerful emotions to fully flower on screen as the adolescents that Kwame has liberated get rehabilitated at a safe house. Expert cinematography enriches our understanding of this difficult and surprising process—from the overhead shots that capture the lake’s epic scale to handheld, vérité-style missions that follow Kwame into dangerous negotiations w