Not My Life

Not My Life is a 2011 American independent documentary film about human trafficking and contemporary slavery. The film was written, produced, and directed by Robert Bilheimer, who had been asked to make the film by Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Bilheimer planned Not My Life as the second installment in a trilogy, the first being A Closer Walk and the third being the unproduced Take Me Home. The title Not My Life came from a June 2009 interview with Molly Melching, founder of Tostan, who said that many people deny the reality of contemporary slavery because it is an uncomfortable truth, saying, "No, this is not my life." Filming of Not My Life took four years to complete, and documented human trafficking in 13 countries: Albania, Brazil, Cambodia, Egypt, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Italy, Nepal, Romania, Senegal, Uganda, and the United States. The first and last scenes of the film take place in Ghana, and show children who are forced to fish in Lake Volta for 14 hours a day. The film also depicts sex trafficking victims, some of whom are only five or six years old. Fifty people are interviewed in the film, including investigative journalist Paul Radu of Bucharest, Katherine Chon of the Polaris Project, and Iana Matei of Reaching Out Romania. Don Brewster of Agape International Missions says that all of the girls they have rescued from child sex tourism in Cambodia identify Americans as the clients who were the most abusive to them. The film was dedicated to Richard Young, its cinematographer and co-director, after he died in December 2010. It had its premiere the following month at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. The narration was completely rerecorded in 2011, replacing Ashley Judd's voice with that of Glenn Close. The version of the film that was aired by CNN International as part of the CNN Freedom Project was shorter than the version shown at the premiere. In 2014, a re-edited version of the film was released. Not My Life addresses many forms of slavery, including the military use of children in Uganda, involuntary servitude in the United States, forced begging and garbage picking in India, sex trafficking in Europe and Southeast Asia, and other kinds of child abuse. The film also focuses on the people and organizations engaged in working against human trafficking. The film asserts that most victims of human trafficking are children. Actress Lucy Liu said that people who watch Not My Life "will be shocked to find [human trafficking] is happening in America." Lucy Popescu of CineVue criticized the film for focusing on the victims, arguing that the perpetrators of trafficking should have been dealt with more prominently. Not My Life was named Best World Documentary at the Harlem International Film Festival in September 2012.