A middle-aged American man receives a postcard from a young, would-be internet bride in Moldova. She claims she has been pressed into white slavery in Serbia. With few resources and little to go on, he decides to rescue her.

SYNOPSIS:

Jake is a middle-aged divorcee living alone in a plain apartment. By day he runs his own demolition company, bringing down buildings in and around the Chicago area. With a certain jaundiced view of the world he sees his work as a metaphor for his failure as a family man.

He has only a few bright lights in his life – his fortnightly visit with his young son and

daughter, and a recently developed cyber-love involving a young Moldavian woman.

But Jake is a realist, he at first suspects that the Moldavian girl, Marta, is nothing but a Russian mafia concoction, a fictitious character invented for the purpose of fleecing

unsuspecting Westerners. But after acquiring her telephone number and finding she is a real and genuine person, he swiftly develops a deep affection for her.

Marta was to be a doctor, but because her widowed mother had insufficient funds to pay the university fees for both her son and daughter, Marta was forced to look for employment. With no prospect of work in Moldova, she accepts an invitation to travel to Italy, there to find waitressing work. She subsequently arranges with Jake to meet him there, with the hope of them falling in love.

Put on a bus in Moldova along with several other young girls looking for work, Marta soon finds she has been snared in a mafia web where young, beautiful girls are traded from crime gang to crime gang as sex slaves. She is bought and sold along with drug deals, and slowly but surely descends into a world of utter degradation and hopelessness.

During her abduction she manages to sneak out a postcard which has Jake’s contact details on it. Jake eventually receives the card, and comes to realize he is the only person who can help her.

With no support from the US government, and with the added difficulty of leaving his

business at a crucial time, Jake is also torn with leaving his ex-wife and children behind. He knows that what he is embarking upon could be life-threatening. In order to head off the objections of his company’s 2IC, he concocts a story about needing to go into hospital to have a tumor treated, thereby explaining his absence. What he is unaware of is that his 2IC is now his ex-wife’s lover. He is further thrown by his ex-wife’s confession that his illness (which she has learnt about via the 2IC) has made her realize the depth of her love for him.

So with grave misgivings and deep inner conflict, Jake travels to Europe to begin a

seemingly hopeless search for someone who is little more than an acquaintance to

him. When he learns that Marta is one of many thousands yearly trafficked in the sexslave industry, Jake is forced to confront himself not only as a man, torn by love for his family, but as a humane person, willing to put his own life on the line to help prevent ongoing morale outrage.

But Jake has one factor very much in his favor when single-handedly taking on the

mafia - Jake is a demolition expert.

POSTCARD FROM SERBIA