‘Sold’ is a 12-minute short film I wrote and directed that was made as a demo for a feature screenplay I wrote. In the summer of 2012, ’Sold’ was chosen out of more than 15,000 submissions to be one of 50 semi-finalists in Ridley Scott’s Youtube Film Festival. We screened the short at more than a dozen film festivals in 2011, most recently at the Austin Film Festival and won BEST DRAMA at the 2011 Malibu and Hollyshorts Film Festivals. A spot edited from the film won the highly competitive MTV contest to raise awareness for human trafficking on television and with MTV’s global concert campaign.

The short stars Fernanda Romero (Without Men, The Eye), Maria Elena Laas (Pastor Shepherd, The Hot Chick), Hector Jimenez (Sin Nombre, Nacho Libre), Jesse Garcia (Quinceanera, Under the same moon), Maria Olsen (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief), Andrew Keegan (10 Things I Hate About You, O, Independence Day), David Alan Graf, Ashley Sawyer, Wilmer Calderon, Rey Borge and Carmen Corral.

Human trafficking is not usually a hot topic of conversation or a commonly discussed social issue. Yet it’s the third most profitable crime in the world (just behind drugs and gun sales), providing around $30 Billion in revenue, worldwide. This is not just a foreign epidemic – in the U.S. alone, there are an estimated 100,000 children in the sex trade.

We hope that the demo for ‘Sold’ can help raise awareness for human trafficking and get people excited about the feature film that is currently in development. I would love to hear your thoughts on the film and if you would love as much as me to see the expanded feature version of this story be made. Feel free to leave a comment below or contact me through my profile or my website: john-irwin.com