I Am Slave

30 August 2010

Death of A President director Gabriel Range joins forces with writer and producer of The Last King of Scotland, for a new Channel 4 drama for theatrical release

Channel 4, in partnership with the UK Film Council, the Film Agency for Wales and Limelight, has commissioned an original feature film, I Am Slave from the makers of The Last King Of Scotland, starring upcoming international talent, Wunmi Mosaku (Moses Jones), Isaach De Bankole (The Limits of Control, 24, Casino Royale) Lubna Azabal (Occupation, Body of Lies), Igal Naor (The House of Saddam) and Nonso Anozie (Occupation, Atonement). Writer Jeremy Brock and producer Andrea Calderwood collaborate for the first time since the Oscar®-winning The Last King of Scotland.  Gabriel Range, who developed the powerful script with Jeremy and Andrea, will direct. Inspired by real life events, it is an extraordinary story about one woman's fight for freedom from modern day slavery.

"The figures for people trafficked into domestic servitude are even more difficult to ascertain, as these people, by definition, work alone or in small groups in residential properties, are scattered and very rarely come to the attention of the UK authorities." Home Affairs Committee report on Human Trafficking in the UK 2009 Home Office figures put the number of trafficking victims currently in slavery in this country at 5,000 people.  The real life accounts of displaced persons sold into domestic servitude here in the UK were the inspiration for this film.

In the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, 12 year old Malia is snatched from the arms of her father during a Muharaleen raid on their village. Beaten and sold into slavery, she spends the next six years of her life working for a Sudanese family, then at 18, Malia (Mosaku) is sent to work in London.

The city swiftly becomes as much a prison as the home in which she is kept; hidden in plain sight, Malia's desperate situation goes unnoticed or uncared for by everyone she comes into contact with.  Stripped of her passport and living in terror of what might happen to her family in the Sudan should she speak out, Malia is trapped in an unforgiving, alien environment.

Despairing of the life to which she has been condemned, she has to call on all her strength to make a dramatic escape back to Sudan and to the father who never gave up hope she was alive, and who never stopped searching for her.

of her passport and living in terror of what might happen to her family in the Sudan should she speak out, Malia is trapped in an unforgiving, alien environment.

 

Despairing of the life to which she has been condemned, she has to call on all her strength to make a dramatic escape back to Sudan and to the father who never gave up hope she was alive, and who never stopped searching for her.