Kidnap

2012, 23:00

A 15 year old girl is kidnapped and sold to a brothel in Nepal. An American woman who runs the orphanage where she lives manages to rescue her!

· 11th In The Palace – International Short Film Festival, July 2013, Balchik, Bulgaria
· Global Community Film Festival (commfest), Toronto (honorable mention), 2012
· London Independent Film Festival, April 2012
· Lucerne International Film Festival (LiFF) (in showcase), 20-22 Oct 2011

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Kidnap posterPrabhavati is an American woman in her 50’s who used to be an actress in Hollywood. Nearly 20 years ago she started Ramana’s Garden, a home for destitute children in Rishikesh, North India.

Last year one of her 67 children, a 15 year old girl named Lalita, was kidnapped and sold to a brothel in Nepal – a fate which happens to thousands of young girls every year. Prabhavati, who was on a fund raising tour in America at the time, flew back immediately, and with huge perseverance and guts and an absolute refusal to entertain the possibility of failure, managed to rescue Lalita.

I have known Prabhavati for 30 years, and Lalita since she arrived at Ramana’s at the age of 9 – and felt that this is a story that has to be told, so I bought a new camera and flew up to visit my friends in Rishikesh.

The previous year I had made another film about this place, “Children of Ramana’s Garden”, which can also be viewed here on my website, and Lalita features in this film also.

Lalita is a typical fifteen year old girl who loves to dance, and wants to be a movie star in Bollywood. Now she is back home, in a place where teenage girls can have aspirations to be whatever they want.

As well as dancing she has to study and pass exams like the other children, some of whom want to be doctors, engineers, teachers, pilots, cooks – just like any bunch of teenagers. All of these children though, come from backgrounds of horrific abuse – so they also have to deal with traumas of rape, murder, neglect and extreme poverty. But in the loving and supportive environment which Prabhavati has created they can heal, blossom and have a real chance to fulfil their potential.

Prabhavati is a totally amazing woman, who’s life is full of extraordinary stories of compassion and courage like this.