''The Jammed'' is a 2007 film written and directed by

Dee McLachlan Dee McLachlan (born Duncan McLachlan; January 1953) is a film director, producer and writer from St Kilda, Victoria. Under her assigned name, McLachlan directed such films as ''Scavengers (film), Scavengers'', ''The Double 0 Kid'', ''Running Wi ...

. The film is a story about human trafficking and the sex slave trade in Melbourne, and the search for three girls trapped by a trafficking syndicate. Court transcripts and actual events were an influence in the production of the film. ''The Jammed'' was nominated for seven AFI Awards, for four FCCA awards and for six

IF Awards The IF Awards, formerly known as the Inside Film Awards, Lexus Inside Film Awards, Kodak IF Awards, and Jameson IF Awards, was an annual awards ceremony and broadcast platform for the Australian film industry. Its name derives from its origins at ...

, winning for best feature film, best script and best music. The film was favourably reviewed by

David Stratton David James Stratton (born 1939) is an English-Australian film critic and historian. He has also worked as a journalist, interviewer, educator, television personality, and producer. His career as a film critic, writer, and educator in Austral ...

and

Margaret Pomeranz Margaret Pomeranz (born Margeret Anne Jones-Owen, 15 July 1944) is an Australian film critic, writer, producer, and television personality. Early life Pomeranz was born Margeret Anne Jones-Owen on 15 July 1944 in Waverley, a suburb of Sydney ...

. Its original distribution plan of a

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

release was altered soon after filmmaker and distributor John L Simpson of Titan View used his own home mortgage to release the film. It ended up screening on 40 screens in Australia and 10 in New Zealand.

Plot

The film begins with an interrogation in an immigration office of an illegal immigrant working as a prostitute on the verge of being deported. Throughout the film it becomes apparent that one of the interrogators (Damien Richardson) has had sex with the girl at an illegal brothel, negating his encouragement to her to tell the truth. The film then backtracks to three weeks before when Ashley (Veronica Sywack), a bored, single insurance clerk, unwittingly becomes involved when she meets a Chinese woman, Sunee (Amanda Ma), as a blind-date airport pickup goes wrong. We learn that Sunee is searching for her daughter, Rubi. Through the various flashbacks, we meet Crystal (Emma Lung), Vanya (Saskia Burmeister) and Rubi (Sun Park), who have all been enslaved in a Melbourne brothel on a premise of "working off their debt" of the cost of being trafficked to Australia using false papers.

Cast

Reception

The film has been generally well received with praise for its frankness and cinematic telling of very serious true stories. Melbourne newspaper ''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...

'' said "The story rides on a strong undercurrent of information about the Melbourne sex slave trade, reflecting the extensive research that went into the film."

Box office

''The Jammed'' grossed $861,524 at the box office in Australia.

References

External links

Official site
*

on the film dated 17 August 2007.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jammed, The 2007 films 2007 drama films Australian drama films Films shot in Melbourne Films about prostitution in Australia Films about human trafficking Works about sex trafficking Human trafficking in Australia 2000s English-language films Films directed by Dee McLachlan English-language drama films