Creative Team

Alison Porter - Script writer, co-choreographer, sound editor and producer. Alison is a PGR researcher in Theatre & Performance Studies at the University of Warwick. She is playwright and poet who studied creative writing at UEA and trained as an actor at RCSSD and the London Centre for Theatre Studies.

Polina Zelmanova - Film Director and PGR student in Film & Television Studies at the University of Warwick. Polina is interested in interdisciplinary arts on both a production and academic level, particularly avant-garde practices and experimentation with form, as well as representations of gender and sexuality.

Alex Hobbs – Video and sound editor. Alex is a graduate in Film and Television Studies from Warwick University and recently worked on the Netflix series House of the Dragon as a video editor.

Ian O'Donoghue - Technical Supervisor at the University of Warwick. Ian designed the lighting for both The Boyfriend Trick film and the installation.

Jim Dawson – Mentor for the film shoot. Film Director with Triple Dot Makers, a moving image and sound studio working across the music industry, museums, galleries and theatres. Past work includes documentaries, animations and installations for English National Ballet; Imperial War Museum; Manchester International Festival; BBC; Royal Exchange Theatre; HOME theatre and the Whitworth Art Gallery.

Simon Tang – is a creative professional photographer based in London. His passion lies with portraits and documentary. He took a series of photographs at the RCSSD 'Collisions' installation.

Cast

Marisa Flamino – Dancer and co-choreographer, is a Portuguese classically trained ballet dancer and choreographer who also performs flamenco and contemporary dance.

Voice Over Actors

Elizabeth ‘Lizzie” Schenk – The voice of Majlinda, the victim/survivor, is an English actor and voiceover artist with Swiss heritage. She trained at LAMDA and recently appeared in the ensemble of Good at The Harold Pinter Theatre.

Dritan Kastrati – The voice of Jetmir, the trafficker, is an Albanian actor who arrived in the UK as an unaccompanied child asylum seeker and went on to train as an actor through Frantic Assembly’s Ignition programme. His auto-biographical play How not to Drown, co-written with Nicola McCartney and produced by ThickSkin, is currently touring the UK.

Donna Sherifi – The voice of Ela, the mother, was born in Kosovo, grew up in Sweden and trained as an actor in London.

Lainey Shaw – The voice of Jo the caseworker, is an actor and voiceover artist from the North of England who has appeared in films and television series including Blue Jean, Gangs of London and Pennyworth.

R.B. ‘Rona’ Castrioti – Singer of the ancient Albanian song ‘Bilbili’ (the Nightingale) is a composer of Greek-Italian and Albanian decent. She is currently a doctoral student affiliated to The Budapest Strings Orchestra, The Czech National Symphony Orchestra, The Kosovo Philharmonic Orchestra and The National Theatre of Kosovo.

Katherine Jee – Voice casting agent with Just Voices. Katherine, who is also an actor, helped to select the voiceover cast and to edit the monologues.

Contributors

Anxhela Bruci holds a Master’s degree in Global Crime and Justice from the University of York. She is the founder of EmpowerFULL, an approach which helps survivors on the path to economic reintegration. Anxhela is also the Albania co-ordinator for Arise.

 Arise a global anti-slavery NGO with a branch in Albania. They provide funding and training to frontline groups, build anti-slavery networks, commission relevant research, and advocate for change.

Medaille Trust exists to provide refuge and freedom to victims of modern slavery supporting them as they rebuild their lives. They are one of the largest provider of supported safe house beds for victims of modern slavery in the UK.

Black Country Women’s Aid is an independent charity which has supported survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence in the West Midlands for 30 years.

Mary Ward Loreto Foundation works both in Albania and the UK to help those most vulnerable to human trafficking. In addition to providing immediate shelter and care to those rescued, they run programs to prevent future trafficking.

The National Crime Agency's Modern Slavery Human Trafficking Unit (MSHTU) works with partners in the UK and around the world to pursue offenders, safeguard victims and to prevent vulnerable people in source countries from becoming victims.