Princess
Drama about the life of a young Nigerian sex worker in the forests of Rome. Authentic, thanks to the lead role of Glory Kevin, who himself was once recruited as a sex worker.
In Italy, thousands of African women are active as illegal sex workers. They are tantalised in their home countries, often Nigeria, by a ‘madame’ for a golden future in Europe. She pays for their travel, but the women have to repay that with sex work. This film tells their story. The main character is nineteen-year-old Princess. In the forests around Rome, she looks for men willing to pay for her services. She negotiates with them about the exact services she will provide, then scrolls through her phone as a distraction during the act. Princess’s life seems to take a positive turn when she meets twenty-year-old Corrado in the woods. He looks for mushrooms there and is not looking for sex at all. Something beautiful blossoms between the two, but doesn’t this land Princess in the next dependency relationship?
On paper, PRINCESS may seem like a heavy drama, but the tone of the film is mostly light, even comic at times. There is none of the expected violence against the women. They mostly do their thing routinely. (jc)