Told through the eyes of a 13-year-old Siberian girl and the American scout who discovered her, Girl Model follows a complex global supply chain of young girls sent abroad to seek their fortunes in the unregulated and often murky world of the modeling industry. Despite a lack of obvious similarities between Siberia and Tokyo, a thriving model industry connects these distant regions. Girl Model profiles Ashley, a deeply ambivalent model scout who scours the Siberian countryside looking for fresh faces to send to the Japanese market, and one of her discoveries, Nadya, a young teenager plucked from her rustic home in Russia and dropped into the center of bustling Tokyo with promises of a profitable career. After Ashley's initial discovery of Nadya, they rarely meet again, but their stories are inextricably bound. As Nadya's optimism about rescuing her family from financial hardship grows, her dreams contrast against Ashley's more jaded outlook about the industry's corrosive influence. Girl Model is a lyrical exploration of a world defined by glass surfaces and camera lenses, reflecting back differing versions of reality to the young women caught in their scope. Official Web Site

Directors:

David Redmon, Ashley Sabin

Cast:

Ashley Arbaugh, Rachel Blais

MPAA Rating:

NR

Run Time:

1hr 17mins

Release Year:

2011

Country Of Origin:

USA/Russia/Japan/France