Girl Model

The Truth Behind the Glamour

Despite a lack of obvious similarities between Siberia and Tokyo, a thriving model industry connects these distant regions. Girl Model follows two protagonists involved in this industry: Ashley, a deeply ambivalent model scout who scours the Siberian countryside looking for fresh faces to send to the Japanese market, and one of her discoveries, Nadya, a thirteen year-old plucked from the Siberian countryside and dropped into the center of Tokyo with promises of a profitable 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.

Reviews

"A provocative documentary that looks into a dark, seldom-seen segment of the modeling industry."- The Gulf Today

"This ex-model, Ashley Arbaugh, is one of the year's most intriguing doc characters, one I'd love to see get a spin off reality series where she's paired up with Tabloid's Joyce McKenna. Girl Model is the film I keep finding reasons to want to revisit, rewatch, and implore friends to see as soon as it's distributed."- Movies.com

"David Redmon and Ashley Sabin's engrossing documentary provides access to a pitiless niche of the fashion industry, but it's arguably more fascinating in its depiction of the recruiters that their discoveries."- Hollywood Reporter