Director: David Redmon & Ashley Sabin | USA 2011 | 77 min

13-year-old Nady is from Novosibirsk in Russia. Just like thousands of other girls from Eastern Europe's most impoverished corners, she dreams of a better life - a life where money isn"t an issue. Her mother and grandmother want her to be financially independent, so when Nadya wins a beauty competition and is offered a contract with a Japanese modelling agency, the future could not look any brighter. Without a penny to her name, but with a long, girly body filled with expectations, Nadya sets off for Japan. At the same time, we follow the former model Ashley, who, in spite of her deep-seated hatred for the modelling industry and what it did to her self-esteem, works as a model scout for a Japanese company. In Japan, models can"t be too young, and Nadya's pre-pubescent looks fit the market perfectly. The only thing she has to do is to claim that she is 15 when she goes to castings. But Nadya's trip to Japan doesn"t go as planned, and when she returns to Russia, she is heavily in debt and mentally scarred for life. David Redmon and Ashley Sabin have made a heart-rending drama and an important film, which exposes the dark sides of the modelling industry and a world, which is obsessed by eternal youth.
Girl Model (USA, 2011, 77 min.)
Director: David Redmon & Ashley Sabin.