| A Dance For Bethany chosen as feature film at Preventing Abuse Conference | Published: 11 September, 2009 |
| PRESS RELEASE September 2009 The PREVENTING ABUSE CONFFERENCE will show the multi-award-winning feature film A Dance For Bethany Friday evening, September 11th, 2009, Irvine Hilton, Orange County, California. The film was chosen for its significance in the world movement against abuse. This important two day conference includes prominent guest speakers on such relevant topics as human trafficking, child abduction, internet predators, extremists, and moral collapse as well as training to get involved in the effort. For details call 1-866-454-1776 or visit www.preventingabuse.org. Little did Yvonne and Marion Williams know that the film business they started three years ago would turn into a crusade against human sex-trafficking. But as the Williams tell their story, "God had a plan." At the time, the former Bradenton, Florida natives were living in Asheville, N.C., in a grand house on a mountain overlooking the city. Yvonne Williams had just finished her first screenplay - a story of a reporter who through her investigations of a prostitution ring finds her own redemption while helping free a trafficked stripper find the life she was meant to live. "I set out to write a novel, but I literally heard a voice tell me to write a screenplay instead," she said. "It is an inspired project.” She took her screenplay west to sell it. But that didn’t happen. Discouraged after nine grueling days of meetings, she returned to her L.A. hotel. While packing for her return flight she randomly flicked the TV to see Bill O'Reilly talking to Michele Gillen, a reporter who has made a career of investigating the multibillion-dollar industry of human trafficking, a form of slavery that spans the globe. Revitalized, Yvonne realized that she was hearing the story she had written and was trying to sell! She returned home and contacted experts working in the field of human trafficking in order to fine tune the script for accuracy and made a few adjustments and making the supporting character, Bethany, a victim of sex traffickers. And so the Williamses, after researching the sordid details of a dark underworld from which few escape, decided to produce the film independently. Marion Williams, a former prison minister, cultivated investors, raising the large budget required to produce a successful independent feature film. But once again, the Williamses said, "God intervened." They realized their film was more than a story; it has become their life project. Told without the gratuitous violence and shocking sex scenes of most films on human trafficking, "A Dance for Bethany" has proved to be a catalyst, informing viewers of the problem and inspiring audiences to take action, the couple said. This is one of the reasons it was chosen for this important conference. The potential for social change convinced the Williamses to reorganize their for-profit film company to a nonprofit business aptly named Raise the Bar Productions. Their goal: to show the film in as many towns and cities as possible, then hold panel discussions on how communities can mobilize to stop human trafficking and prevent their at-risk youth from falling prey to predators. “Our goal is to not leave a community the way we found it," said Marion Williams Human trafficking is not just a third world issue, the couple has found. In the US, our children and adolescents as well as adults are being victimized daily. The average age of victims is 12. Most are young girls forced into prostitution, stripping or into the Internet pornography business. "It is believed that more than 40 percent of missing and runaway children in America end up as victims of human traffickers," Marion Williams said. While the actual number of victims is hard to pin down, the U.S. State Department estimates that nearly 800,000 people are taken against their will each year with more than 20,000 victims being taken into the United States, with Florida and California being leading entry points. Other estimates place the number of victims as high 3 million. "A Dance for Bethany" has garnered three awards from the three film festivals it entered, winning best feature film at the Faith and Film Motion Picture Festival as well as the Redemptive Storyteller Award at the Redemptive Film Festival, and the award of excellence for the score in the L.A. Accolade competition submitted by the film’s music Composer. The film is currently being marketed domestically and around the globe by Princ Films. Hollywood actors Robyn Lively and William McNamara starred in the lead roles of reporter Abbey Fisher and her attorney-husband James. Marion and Yvonne Williams currently live near Nashville, TN and are available to groups and organizations working to help in the fight against human trafficking and slavery in America. Contact information is available on the website: www.adanceforbethany.com |
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