by Dianna C. Lefas, "Destination: Upstate"

Luchia Drogosh conceived, wrote, directed and acted in this thought provoking new film by Berkshire-based Blue Flower Productions. The young production company is tackling an age-old human evil with fresh energy.

For most of us, the underground world of human trafficking remains undetected, and therefore beyond our concern. With this new movie, written and directed by Bulgarian born Luchia Drogosh, the lines of hidden deception should be a little easier to recognize. It is her hope that the common pitfalls encountered by those who would be unwittingly selling themselves into slavery, could be clearly defined and thus avoided. It is also hoped that by using her film as a vehicle, those taking part in the sale of human cargo could be identified and brought to justice.

For Dragosh, the subject matter of human trafficking is a poignant one - a friend of hers had been a victim - and with the help of Berkshire-based Blue Flower Productions of Berlin, NY, the message of this violent, disturbing breach of human dignity is incised and explored.

“It was a very difficult film to make,” said Dragosh of the film in which she also stars. She developed the concept after reading an account in a Bulgarian newspaper of poor women selling their newborns to be adopted into affluent families with a hope of a better life. The story jumped out and clung tenaciously to her, gnawing away and giving no rest until she wrote about it. She broadened the storyline to include human trafficking.

“In some cases, women plan to get pregnant and sell their babies. When the article read, ‘They are poor so it's OK,’ it made me furious! In a legal way, you don’t know where this baby will end up,” she protested.

Scott Mann of Blue Flower Productions, encouraged the writing of the script and was committed to its production.

The story, filmed in Westchester County, follows the lives of three women, one Chinese, one Bulgarian and one Russian, as they are tricked via desperate personal circumstances, to come to America. It is in America that they learn of the bogus front of their agencies which, while promising help, employment and a new start in a new world, actually entrap the women into a prostitution ring, selling the children they are pregnant with on the black market for adoption or organ harvest.

“In other parts of the world, there is supply,” said Dragosh. “In America, there is demand.”

While America is not the only country profiting from the black human smuggling and trafficking trade, it is a country whose public ethics decry such vulgar abuses, yet finds itself a cooperative host nonetheless

“The message of the movie is to stop it,” Dragosh, who studied acting in New York four years out of the five and a half she has been in this country, said. “President Bush made a new law to give special visas to protect them (the victims) so they can start a new life here. Otherwise, if deported, they will have the same destiny as before,” she explained, then added, “Everyone has to change in order to change society.”

The challenging movie could not have been tackled, says Dragosh, if it were not for the staunch support of Mann.

“I cannot imagine the project without him. Not only for the money, but for his emotional support.”

Perhaps it has to do with the philosophy of his mission. On his website, http://www.blueflowerproductions. com/, Mann wrote concerning the film, “What we need is this: a new vision of human potential bursting the vicious circle of supply and demand that circumscribes the lives of women and children all over the world who are traded for cash and trafficked as mere commodities. To disrupt this cycle, we offer this destabilizing product: a film that creates a demand, rather than satisfying one, a demand as essential to the spiritual development of mankind in the 21st century, as the abolition of slavery in the 19th century. The demand that the world be cleansed of the stain of human trafficking.”

A quote by Plato found on the Blue Flower Productions website is apropos: “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

The movie goes to the Cannes Film Festival in May (the filmmakers hope) and then on to other festivals around the world, including Moscow, Toronto, and Sophia.

Cinematographer: Hernan Toro. Assistant Director: Sheri Davini. Picture and sound editor: Georgia Hilton from World Wide Audio. 1 hr. 53 min.