Eden

In New Mexico, eighteen-year-old Hyun Jae is abducted by a man she meets in a nightclub. She is locked in a warehouse in the desert and held inside an organised prostitution ring. Years pass; instead of escaping she chooses to survive by rising within the system. Megan Griffiths directed and wrote with Richard B. Phillips. Jamie Chung plays Hyun Jae, Beau Bridges the federal officer running the ring. The film started from events a woman named Chong Kim described as having happened to her in the nineties, and the true story claim was foregrounded in its promotion. In 2014 that became complicated: a non-profit organisation announced it had examined Kim's account and concluded it was not true. It did not release the material behind that conclusion and the argument was never closed. This does not invalidate the film, but it does make its true story claim contested. The telling avoids sensation; the violence mostly stays outside the frame. Who it is for: viewers who can watch drama about human trafficking. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a literal account of a real case; the source was called into question.