LOVEMOBIL

Milena operates via a seedy pimp but Rita rents her caravan from Uschi, a tough older woman who keeps her in line and advises the woman about pricing her services. She also appears to care for her, after a fashion. Uschi isn't what you'd imagine a pimp or a madam to be. A former prostitute herself, who has reinvented herself into a kind of slumlord out of economic necessity. Her home is filled with tiny dogs that she coddles. Yet, when a local priest accuses her of exploiting Rita, she argues that "30% of the girls in Africa are bred for this job". Eventually, Rita attempts to upgrade to a seedy brothel, but faces more racist attitudes from the grubby patrons.

'Lovemobil' deliberately keeps the sex acts off camera so that Lehrenkrauss can focus on the humanity of these desperate lives, filming Rita trapped in a caravan, looking sadly out a window adorned with a neon heart, or Milena rationalising her decisions. The film is filled with moments that thwart stereotypes, revealing the naked heart of a person rising, resisting, failing, and falling in sex work. With a photographer's eye, Lehrenkrauss juxtaposes the grim nature of the work with the beauty of the forests in which their caravans are parked.

The majority of sex workers aren't fantastical bleach blonde starlets with whiter-than-white teeth: they are real working people who get frustrated with the constraints of their various jobs, lifestyles and microeconomies, just like everyone else. And despite sex-positive feminism's tense efforts at wishing away the ugly parts, there are indeed many sex workers who are unwillingly trapped in prostitution as well.

"Sex work" has become such a catch-all term that it's difficult to pinpoint exactly what it means - and with a term so hard to pin down, forming an opinion about the definition becomes equally complex. Mixing the beautiful and lurid, 'Lovemobil' provides audiences with plenty of food for thought.