Film exposes London's sex industry underworld

Scene from the Receptionist




In 2009, a Chinese woman called Anna killed herself near London's Heathrow Airport. Her friends later learned that she had been working as a prostitute in an illegal massage parlour.
One of those friends, Jenny Lu, a Taiwanese art school graduate, began a journey to find out about her secret life.
It resulted in Lu's first feature film, The Receptionist, which premieres in Taiwan on Friday and at the Edinburgh Film Festival in the UK next week. Dismiss
Some readers may find aspects of this story upsetting.
"I met Anna in Chinatown at a dinner gathering. She looked really normal," recalls director Lu.
"She came from a little village in China. She went to London because she wanted a better life. But she ended up living a double life that no-one knew about.
"I felt really sad. How come no-one knew about this and no-one was able to help?"

The London dream

Through a mutual friend, Lu tracked down women who had worked with Anna at a massage parlour.
They were immigrants from mainland China, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. Other parlours employed women from well-off economies including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea or Japan.

POSTED BY:OPUOMONI PRIYE
DATE:06/23/2017

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