Diana Davis has rescued 200 survivors of human and sex trafficking, by her accounting. The West Palm Beach founder of the nonprofit MoviesMakingADifference produces socially conscious movies that highlight the horrors of trafficking, child labor and child marriages. The money raised through fundraising screenings goes to rescuing victims and providing support programs.
After Davis, now 64, graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, she began a career as an actress in New York. Her life-changing cause began later in life in Arizona where she had lived as a child and then as an adult. Through an investigative journalist, she was made aware of FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints), a splinter fundamentalist cult of the Mormon religion. The cult uses polygamy and child marriage to supply a labor force for its powerful network of business operations throughout communities in the Southwest, Canada and Mexico. The journalist suggested to Davis that someone needed to make a film about the cult with an uplifting ending to inspire people into action.
“When I heard this was going on in my state, I couldn’t turn my back on it,” says Davis. “This was not something going on halfway around the world and I had no way to help. I had the means. I knew all these people in the film industry. When I told them why I was doing it, they just rallied and came on board.”
Davis launched MoviesMakingADifference in 2014 and began rescue missions immediately, directly helping both girls and boys leave their exploitative communities. The organization produced two full-length feature films based on real human trafficking events. The film “Cathedral Canyon,” a story set in modern Phoenix and a rural polygamist community, was entered in the 2014 Palm Beach Film Festival and won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film.
With the success of that film, Davis moved to West Palm Beach.
The films are not available on platforms like Netflix, Davis says, because revenue would be minimal. Shown at fundraisers, they have raised half a million dollars — with 100% of proceeds going back to survivors.
Her rescues are broad in scope. “Carmelita,” an upcoming production that will feature Screen Actors Guild talent as well as survivors as actors, will be filmed around Palm Beach County and address trafficking to Miami from Latin America.
“America is the biggest consumer of sex trafficking,” says Davis, and adds, “Florida is the third largest hub for human trafficking in the U.S. It’s important for all of us, everywhere, to be aware.”