Hollywood Black Film Festival 2008

'Turning a Corner' was created in a media activism workshop that director Salome Chasnoff facilitated with 15 women who were street prostitutes in Chicago. The women were trained to use video cameras, conduct interviews, analyze the issues surrounding prostitution, and tell their stories. Shot on the street corners across Chicago where they once traded sex, the film features the women's survival and triumph over sexual abuse, homelessness, violence and discrimination.'Turning a Corner' gives rare insights into Chicago's sex industry, and documents the women's efforts to raise awareness of the injustices experienced by those who struggle to survive in this underground world. They include Lucretia Clay, whose mother sold her to a pimp when she was 12 years old. Lucretia takes us to the seedy motel where she spent most of the 26 years during which she was trapped in the world of street prostitution. 'A lot of the girls that I worked with are not here to come back and tell their story,' she reflects. Also profiled is Brenda Myers, who takes the viewer on a tour of Chicago where the sex industry thrives. 'When women were in prostitution and get out of it, they never tell anybody because of the way people judge them, because of the 'scarlet letter.' I think somebody should, and that's what I do,' Brenda explains. 'The women's compelling analyses of prostitution and the effects of its criminalization will surprise even the most knowledgeable viewer,' says Chasnoff.