ArtsZipper

Presented by Cinema St. Louis
With support from the Regional Arts Commission.
Film
General Audiences

The sexual exploitation of children is a problem Americans associate exclusively with developing countries, but "Playground" makes clear that it’s a huge industry within the United States. The film traces the epidemic’s roots, including the way children are educated about sex, and couches its cultural observations in a mystery story: the search for an American girl lost to the underbelly of childhood sexual exploitation. "Playground," which debuted at Tribeca, is executive produced by George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh, and features animation by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara. Describing the film as "thoughtful, sensitive and broader in its indictments than most treatments of the subject," Variety summarizes: "Tackling a topic you can’t film, victims you don’t want to identify and a subject from which most auds naturally recoil in horror, helmer Libby Spears works certain wonders with ‘Playground,’ a state-of-the-union address on the sexual exploitation of American children."