Modern Whore

Filmmaker(s)

Nicole Bazuin – Director

Running Time

Feature Film

80 minutes

Genres

Documentary

Modern Whore

Andrea is a 21-year-old university student, aspiring writer, and coffee shop barista who dreams of making more than minimum wage. A chance visit to a local strip club sparks a shocking revelation: whoredom is her destiny. After months of research, Andrea contacts an escort agency and is quickly hired under the pseudonym, Mary Ann. A revolving door of johns line our protagonist’s pockets, but the cost of keeping her work a secret becomes too much to bear. Six months into her new gig, Andrea tells her Catholic mother Rosalie who is deeply concerned for her daughter’s safety – and her soul. While most of her clientele are kind, generous, and respectful, predators do slip through the cracks. When Andrea graduates university, her mother asks her to quit sex work. Andrea agrees with an exit date set for a year.

A woman of her word, Andrea leaves her two-year agency escorting career behind to work on a farm with her boyfriend, Oliver. Another two years passes, and she itches for city life, landing her first salaried 9-5 job as an administrative assistant. But the rush hour grind doesn’t suit her, yearning for a job with independence, schedule flexibility, and earning potential. So, Andrea gets a job working as a bike courier instead – in the middle of winter. As the risks of the job begin to wear on her, she asks herself, “What’s more dangerous in this city – working as a bike courier or as a stripper?”

Andrea returns to sex work via the strip club with a new persona: Sophia. She loves performing, her co-workers, and most of all, the money – but predators still lurk behind every corner. In addition to sexual assault, Sophia must field probing, inappropriate questions that seek trauma porn responses, like “What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?” and “Who touched you?” With one customer, we find out why he’s asked.

Part documentary and part re-enactments, Modern Whore features Andrea in interview and playing herself, in addition to a dastardly character named “Shame” – a tyrannical inner demon. The film also features interviews with Andrea’s current and former sex worker friends Kitoko Mai, Robin Banks, SJ Raphael, and Vixen Vu, Andrea’s devoutly Catholic mother Rosalie, Andrea’s long-term romantic partner Oliver, and her regular strip club client Ron.

In the end, Andrea continues to dream of making a living as a writer – but until that day, she works.

Filmmaker Notes:

Modern Whore is a collaborative project over a decade in the making, born from my longtime friendship and creative kinship with author/performer Andrea Werhun. Together, we co-created Modern Whore: A Memoir, a collection of Andrea’s personal stories and my photographs, as an art book we published in association with IMPULSE[b] in 2018, and subsequently, an expanded edition published by Penguin Random House Canada in 2022. Having also previously directed two award-winning hybrid doc short films featuring Andrea, the feature-length Modern Whore brings our cinematic collaborations to the next level.

Modern Whore is a colourful and immersive presentation of Andrea’s story that confronts and reimagines popular representations of sex work. As opposed to the familiar, dreary cautionary tales or titillating archetypes that reduce sex workers to villains or victims, Modern Whore reflects a desire for nuanced stories with humour, heart and truth. Elevating Andrea Werhun’s personal narrative onscreen with Modern Whore disrupts age-old stereotypes by presenting the complex humanity of a sex worker artfully and without shame.

The Modern Whore hybrid-doc feature film situates Andrea Werhun as the charismatic storyteller at the center of a theatrical, stylized world. The film is anchored by the author gazing into the camera as she details her experiences and reflections that run the emotional gamut. Without shying away from the darker aspects of Andrea’s account, the intent is to include moments of humour, camp, and sensuousness as a natural extension of Andrea’s warmth, charm, and comedic flair. The story-world comes to life with a Technicolour palette and formal awareness meant to brand a legitimizing label of “art” upon the truth of our storyteller.

We were fortunate to have Andrea bravely featured in this film, along with four of her friends from the sex worker community: Robin Banks, Kitoko Mai, SJ Raphael, and Vixen Vu. Though sex work is the “world’s oldest profession,” it remains largely misunderstood, and few providers feel comfortable sharing their stories. Not only does social stigma affect sex workers’ lives and their ability to be “face out,” but it can also produce a “stigma-by-proxy” faced by those who love them. Andrea’s mom, Rosalie, and her longtime partner, Oliver, speak with Andrea about those challenges. Capturing their mutual love and support is the film’s emotional core.

Andrea’s portrayal of her lived experience in Modern Whore is a radical act of reclamation that I’m proud to help bring to the screen as both a collaborator and an ally. Stories like Andrea’s can deepen our collective understanding of financial independence, sexual expression, consent and bodily autonomy as we imagine better futures for sex workers, for women, for all of us. Anchored by our friendship, Andrea has trusted me with the preciousness of her story. Collaborating brings us joy, and our shared sense of humour, drive for social change, and passion for creating meaningful artwork are at the heart of this film.