DOCUMENTARY; 1hr 26min
DIRECTED BY: Justin Dillon
Voicing her outrage: Ormond
From the US to India, Cambodia and Africa, the stats on human slavery run into millions — one million people are trafficked each year in the US alone. Call + Response is about the groundswell of corresponding righteous anger from musicians, pundits and actors. Musicians Moby, Imogen Heap and Natasha Bedingfield, among a stack of others, perform in a Concert to End Slavery, bolstered by to-camera commentary from the disparate likes of egghead Cornel West, former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright and actresses Julia Ormond and Ashley Judd. Their input is clumsily collated by muso Justin Dillon and intercut with observations from abused women and girls and on the fly location footage.
Judd, for one, would like to see “rage … converted into compassionate action” and this is certainly a try-hard start. Donation-funded and action-driven (according to the press notes, profits from the film and its soundtrack will be used for rehabilitation and training projects), Call + Response labours and labours its point but hits home sporadically as a mine of appalling information.
