ALFF Program - The Whistleblower

Wednesday, February 8 at 9:00pm

Dir. Larysa Kondracki (in attendance)
Canada/Germany, 2010, 112 minutes

Inspired by actual events, Kathy (Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz) is an American police officer who takes a job working as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia. Her expectations of helping to rebuild a devastated country are dashed when she uncovers a dangerous reality of corruption, cover-up and intrigue amid a world of private contractors and multinational diplomatic doubletalk. Directed by first time Canadian filmmaker Larysa Kondracki, the film also stars Academy Award winner Vanessa Redgrave, Monica Bellucci and Academy Award nominee David Strathairn.

While the scenes of abuse and confinement are, at times, difficult to watch, Kondracki handles the tough and anger-inducing reality of sex-slavery with a light touch that avoids gratuity. The Whistleblower is a film that harkens back to the Golden Age of American independent cinema from the early 70’s, yet at the same time is an inherently modern interpretation of the political thriller. Like any broad reaching story, its genesis was relatively modest – in the early 2000s, director Larysa Kondracki was based in New York conducting research on what would soon be her feature debut. Born and raised in Toronto, she grew up with strong ties to the Ukrainian community there and used that as inspiration for the story that she wanted to tell. She explains, “As a Ukrainian, it was important to me to tell the story of trafficking, but what I had no idea was just how broad the crime was.” Q&A with the director to follow the screening.