'Wake Up' Film Shares Human Trafficking Dangers, Redlands Showing

REDLANDS, CA — "Wake Up," a feature film featuring the dangers of human trafficking, pre-screen Monday at the Harkins Theaters, Mountain Grove 16, in Redlands with a 6 p.m. showing. Organizers are raising funds for local non-profits which aid victims through rehabilitation and recovery, organizers say, and a question and answer session with filmmakers was scheduled after the Monday screening.

Janet Craig and Kristin Wise are foster parents turned filmmakers who want everyone to "Wake Up" and be aware of the dangers to older foster kids. Craig wrote, directed and acted in the film that Wise produced. The film follows multiple characters whose lives collide to spare two vulnerable young women from human trafficking. It has already drawn attention from film festivals and continues to shine a light on the dangers of human trafficking.

Craig describes "Wake Up" as a thriller that exposes the terrifying world of human trafficking that is threatening our most vulnerable youth: foster children.

The story of "Wake Up" is based upon the real-life stories of foster children and human trafficking victims, according to filmmakers. The stage is set when an emancipated foster teen accidentally gets his cash and her bast friend targeted by a sex trafficking ring, according to IMDB.

Yucapia mother Stephanie Dixon, together with her children Dallas and Maddox Dixon, took part behind the scenes of the feature, she tells Patch.

The film has won awards at the 2021 Sunscreen West Film Festival in Hermosa Beach, for Best Feature Film, Best Dramatic Performance and the official selection of the Sedona International Film Festival. Proceeds from the film will go towards three local organizations that rescue and rehabilitate human trafficking victims, event organizers say.

"Human trafficking is in every neighborhood around the world," filmmaker Janet Craig said in a recent interview with the San Diego Union Tribune. As a foster parent, Craig has seen how the foster system has failed some children. "There's a lot of manipulation and kids can get targeted without even knowing they're being trafficked. They just think it's just a boyfriend or girlfriend taking them out to do some partying, and then they're in it."

Proceeds from the feature are supporting foster organizations like Raising HOPE, whose founder states that "it only takes one compassionate adult to change the course of a kid's life."

With the "Wake Up" movie, filmmakers, cast, crew and all associated hope that the message of human trafficking will stay in the conversation long after January's Human Trafficking Awareness Month is in the rearview mirror.

"It's happening all around us, everywhere," Craig told the Tribune. "It's not a simple story of good versus evil, but of people capable of both."