Movi Hub

Yan Ruisheng

1921

In the summer of 1920, Shanghai was scandalized by a sensational murder, a high-profile case and subsequent trial that was the ongoing topic of conversation in the city's numerous cafes, clubs and teahouses. Among the various reasons for its notoriety, two stand out: first, the victim was a high-class prostitute, well known in Shanghai; second, the murderer had been a mid-level manager in a respected foreign firm, a playboy who in Manhattan might have been termed a "prominent young man about town." There were detailed press reports daily as the case wound its way through the judicial system.

6.8

Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids

2004

Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.

7.7

The Prostitutes of Lyon Speak

1975

Documentary about the Lyon sex workers who occupied the church of St. Nizier on June 3, 1975.

0.0

Storyville - The Naked Dance

2001

The Naked Dance is the first documentary about America's legendary legal red-light district that thrived in New Orleans from 1898 until World War I. Storyville got its name when Alderman Sidney Story attempted to clear up the New Orleans waterfront by restricting prostitution to a specific neighborhood. To his chagrin, the area was dubbed "Storyville," and it was so known until the U.S. Navy closed it for good in 1917.

6.0

The Salt Mines

1990

Explores the lives of Sara, Gigi and Giovanna, three Latino transvestites who for years have lived on the streets of Manhattan supporting their drug addictions through prostitution. They made their temporary home inside broken garbage trucks that the Sanitation Department keeps next to the salt deposits used in the winter to melt the snow. The three friends share the place known as "The Salt Mines".

7.0

Bed Peace

1969

John and Yoko in the presidential suite at the Hilton Amsterdam, which they had decorated with hand-drawn signs above their bed reading "Bed Peace." They invited the global press into their room to discuss peace for 12 hours every day.

2.3

Mustang: The House That Joe Built

1977

A documentary about the girls of the Mustang Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada.

6.8

Megacities

1998

Megacities is a documentary about the slums of five different metropolitan cities.

1.0

Five Sex Rooms und eine Küche

2007

8.0

Aufstand im Bordell - Frauenhandel um 1900

2024

In the spring of 1902, Viennese working-class daughter Marie König runs away from her beating father and is lured into a high-class brothel by an agent. Instead of the promised self-determined life "with horse-drawn carriage rides and silk dresses", she experiences closed doors, violence and exploitation. Only after years of agony does Marie confide in the journalist Emil Bader, who makes the conditions in the brothel public and takes the owner, Regine Riehl, to court.

4.8

Hookers, Hustlers, Pimps and Their Johns

1993

British filmmaker Beeban Kidron ventures onto the mean streets of the South Bronx and other New York locales to examine the lives of those involved in the city's thriving sex industry.

4.0

Dragan Wende - West Berlin

2014

Dragan Wende has lived in Berlin since the '70s and has seen the city change through the years. His nephew comes to live with him as Dragan remembers the better days he lived as a Yugoslavian immigrant in a divided city.

7.0

Life of Crime 2

1998

This follow-up to the 1989 documentary ONE YEAR IN A LIFE OF CRIME revisits three of the original subjects in New Jersey during a five-year period in the 1990s. We share in their triumphs and setbacks as they navigate lives of poverty, drug abuse, AIDS, and petty crime.

0.0

Gangstresses

2000

Gangstresses, a documentary by Harry Davis, tells the story of violence, poverty, and survival in the streets from a female perspective. Over a two-year period, Davis interviews female hustlers, drug dealers, rappers, porn stars, prostitutes, mothers, and daughters. Among them are Champagne, a well-known African American porn star who has a small child; Mama Mayhem, a street hustler; Uneek, a rapper from the Bronx; and Vanessa Del Rio, a famous porn actress. Musicians Lil' Kim, Mary J. Blige, Ice T, and Tupac Shakur also share personal stories of survival. The documentary conducts follow-up research on the women's complicated lives, offering glimpses of both tragic reality and hopeful recovery.

9.0

A Month With the Girls

2024

The French female pioneer of immersion journalism, Maryse Choisy, who infiltrated in 1928 the prostitution underworld of Paris. Posing as a chambermaid, a lesbian bar dancer and more, she wrote a very successful and scandalous book about that avant-garde experience, and changed her mind about this world and these women's difficult condition.

2.0

Atlantic City Hookers: It Ain't E-Z Being A Ho'

2004

Documentary - HD. Hidden cameras capture prostitutes working the streets of the neon-soaked gambling mecca of Atlantic City.

7.7

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

2003

Hugo Chavez was a colourful, unpredictable folk hero who was beloved by his nation’s working class. He was elected president of Venezuela in 1998, and proved to be a tough, quixotic opponent to the power structure that wanted to depose him. When he was forcibly removed from office on 11 April 2002, two independent filmmakers were inside the presidential palace.

6.6

Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam

1995

A documentary crew from the BBC arrives in L.A. intent on interviewing Heidi Fleiss, a year after her arrest for running a brothel but before her trial. Several months elapse before the interview, so the crew searches for anyone who'll talk about the young woman. Two people have a lot to say to the camera: a retired madam named Alex for whom Fleiss once worked and Fleiss's one-time boyfriend, Ivan Nagy, who introduced her to Alex. Alex and Nagy don't like each other, so the crew shuttles between them with "she said" and "he said." When they finally interview Fleiss, they spend their time reciting what Alex and Nagy have had to say and asking her reaction.

6.7

High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell