HBO to Reveal the Secret of The Whistle Blower

HBO Films has scooped up a political thriller called The Whistle Blower. The film is based on the story of Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska cop who travelled with the International Police Task Force to post-war Bosnia* in 1999. While she ran an office that investigated sex crimes, Bolkovac alleged that peacekeepers, police, and U.N. workers were committing the very crimes she was investigating.

Bolkovac's honesty came at the cost of her job, although she was officially canned for falsifying time sheets. What the Nebraskan shared during a 2002 tribunal is shocking. Her claims ranged from accounts of men using prostitutes to women being beaten and raped if they refused to perform sex acts.

The Whistle Blower was penned by the Canadian and Irish filmmaking duo of Larysa Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan, who last made the short film Little Christmas. Can they handle serious material? Sexual slavery is a far cry from egg nog and mistletoe. Of course, we do live in a world where Kevin Costner could follow up Dances with Wolves with The Postman.

It has been over four years since Kathryn Bolkovac spoke out, yet these crimes are still happening, and movies are referencing them. TIFF aired Transe, the dry, chilling tale of a woman kidnapped and sold into prostitution. Yesterday, James Rocchi mentioned Sacha Baron Cohen's spin on the treatment of women in Eastern Europe. Where some use satire, others try to get you right in the gut. I, for one, am ready to see how deep their cinematic knife will stab.