BOSS PICTURES PRESENTS
LOGLINE
A poor, Nigerian hairstylist is offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work in Hollywood, only to be tricked into the dark world of sex trafficking.
SYNOPSIS
Ijeoma (Ee-joe-mah) is a young Nigerian woman who struggles to get by as a hairdresser in the poor and undeveloped Benin City in Edo State. She is ambitious and dreams, just like thousands of other young women around the world, of a better life. When Ijeoma meets Diana, a customer who seeks last minute hair care and offers her a much higher paid job abroad, her dream of one day owning her own salon seems more attainable than ever. Excited about this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Ijeoma packs her bags and accompanies Diana to America. Upon arriving to Los Angeles, everything seems perfect at first, but when Ijeoma meets her new “employer,” things take an unexpected turn. Completely blindsided, Diana hands Ijeoma over to two Mexican johns who force her into a shabby van and take her to a filthy, abandoned brothel with eight other girls from various parts of the world. After being raped by one of the johns, Ijeoma is forced to engage in lewd sexual acts with up to twenty men a day. In the meantime, and unbeknownst to Ijeoma, her aunt and uncle sell their house in Nigeria in order to afford a private investigator, Benny, who tries to penetrate the underworld of human sex trafficking in Los Angeles, in hopes to find Ijeoma still alive. When her captors discover that Ijeoma is pregnant, she attempts to escape, but miserably fails. Instead of getting killed for attempting to flee, Ijeoma is sold to a baby factory where she is promised freedom in exchange for the sale of her unborn child, but after she gives birth, she gets tricked and ends up back into the hands of the Mexican brothel owners. By a twist of fate, she crosses paths with Benny who poses as a client, but the encounter puts her in even greater danger as her struggle for freedom continues.
JESSICA BOSS - MISSION
The purpose of UNNAMED is to shed a light on the rampant, worldwide issue of trafficking that also happens in our own backyard, in a compelling and moving motion picture.
UNNAMED is a timely narrative story that deals with the harsh reality of sex trafficking that affects millions of women, children and men in every single country in the world.
One day, I was watching YouTube videos to teach myself my native Nigerian Pidgin dialect, when I stumbled upon videos of real women detailing the horrors of being trafficked by madams and johns. The videos broke my heart and lit a fire in me to educate myself so that I could be part of the solution to help eradicate this crime.
What my film aims to do is to tell a riveting story centered around a poor Nigerian woman, Ijeoma, who represents the millions of “unnamed” women who are in bondage worldwide and silenced by their madams and johns, making it impossible for them to seek help.
Through filmmaking, I believe it is the most influential way to raise awareness of what is happening not only in third world countries, but also right here in our backyard. In the US alone, 1 in 3 children are at risk for sex trafficking, and worldwide there are an estimated 20-30 million women, men and children currently enslaved.
Those women, children and men in captivity could be your daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, friends, you or me. It starts with awareness and educating ourselves on the problem so that we can find solutions.
-Jessica Boss, Actress | Director