Do you want to be a Girl Model?

GIRL MODEL follows Ashley, a deeply ambivalent model scout and Nadya her thirteenyear-old protégé. who is plucked from the outer reaches of Siberia and dropped in the centre of Tokyo with the promise of a successful career.

After Ashley's initial discovery of Nadya, the two rarely meet again, but their stories are inextricably bound. As Nadya's optimism about rescuing her family from their financial difficulties grows, her dreams contrast against Ashley's more jaded outlook about the industry's corrosive influence.

Stuck in an alien world miles away from home Nadya goes through a punishing grind of casting calls and rejections. She and innocent girls like her are left to fend for themselves, barely able to communicate and bound by contracts that forbid them to gain weight or inches and allows the agencies to renege on the immigration requirement of guaranteed work, leaving them worse off than when they started.

Will Nadya, and the other girls like her, be able to find anyone to help them navigate this maze, or will they follow a path like Ashley's, having learned the tricks of the labyrinth but unable to escape its lure?

Walking into UK cinemas February 10, 2012