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Utah Film Center founder Geralyn Dreyfous says a deathbed promise made to Mother Teresa motivates her to keep raising funds to open a school for kids raised in Calcutta's red-light districts.

Dreyfous, who labels herself a lapsed Catholic, didn't even make the promise herself, but she is bound by the commitment of advocate Bonnie Long to build the school, called Hope House. Long and her family's Salt Lake City-based Head First Development have been Dreyfous' partner in fundraising to educate kids born in India's red-light districts. Those efforts grew out of two documentaries Dreyfous made, 2003's "The Day My God Died" and 2004's Oscar-winning "Born Into Brothels."

Those documentaries launched Dreyfous' Utah-rooted career supporting films with the aim of making a difference. And they inspired another generation of storytellers focusing on sex trafficking in the form of "Sold," Patricia McCormick's influential and beautifully wrought 2006 young-adult novel, now adapted by Oscar-winning director Jeffrey D. Brown into a new film.

Now that brand of cause-oriented storytelling is coming full circle in Salt Lake City, Dreyfous says, with a benefit and sneak-peek screening of "Sold," which will be released in March. McCormick and Brown are headlining the fundraiser aimed at raising the last $260,000 of a $1.8 million campaign to open Hope House, a campus outside Calcutta to train and educate daughters of prostitutes.

"Sold" tells the story of Lakshmi (played by Niyar Saikia in her first feature role), sold by her stepfather into prostitution. The thoughtful girl thinks she's going to the city to work as a household maid to buy a tin roof for the family's shack. (Following a fundraising dinner, the Utah Film Center screening at the Salt Lake Main Library is free.)

"This film is going to start a much, much bigger conversation about the problem that exists today in every single country in the world," says Gillian Anderson, who stars in "Sold" as a documentary photographer who is haunted by Lakshmi, the young Nepalese prostitute.

"It's very rare, I think, that a piece of art or of storytelling could really help to change things," says Emma Thompson, executive producer, in the film's trailer. " 'Sold' is one of those films. It's a beautiful piece of work."

Hope House earned a mention in "Sold," even before the school has opened, Brown says, as his nod to photographer Zana Briski and filmmaker Ross Kauffman's "Brothels." That led to Kids with Cameras, an effort to fund education for the eight youths featured in the film. "Hope House — he made it a character," Dreyfous says. "It exists in our minds, on paper and in the film."

Kids with Cameras was launched after the documentary's debut at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, when a donor offered $50,000 after the screening to build a school for the brothel kids.

"We were so caught up in the moment of the film and the Sundance audience, with somebody offering you $50,000 to build a school," Dreyfous says. "It was so utterly naive of us to think this was possible to do. Idealistically, it was a beautiful idea. In practice, it's now 2015, and the movie came out in 2004. It's taken us 11 years."

She adds: "It's so hard to get things done in India when you're in Salt Lake City. Having done this for as long as we have, we gotta get this thing done."

After the original brothel kids grew up, Kids with Cameras was closed in 2009, and assets were transferred to the Hope House project. That's operated by Head First Development, based on the Long family's six generations of charitable work building and operating schools and hospitals in India, including the first hospital to treat HIV-positive prostitutes.

Hope House, currently under construction, is on 5 acres outside Calcutta that includes mango trees, an organic garden and a pond.

"We're about six months away from opening the doors, God willing," says J. Mark Long, Bonnie's son and the nonprofit's communications and creative director.

Programs will include vocational and educational training, as well as English classes and computer and arts programs. "Not every girl is going to come out of the red-light district ready to drop into school," Mark Long says.

At opening, the Hope House campus will have facilities for 15 to 25 daughters of prostitutes, and is planned to expand to 100. "This whole thing, it starts with trust," Long says. "If you lose the trust of the community, you might as well be building something else."

Hope House programs are aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty and were designed in consultations with the community. "A young girl is not just going to be helping herself out, but she's going to be changing an entire pathway for a family line," he says. "The most important thing is to realize you're investing in generational change."

And that's the benefit of working with change-oriented storytellers, says Long, who has been traveling to Calcutta since he was 11 months old. "It's really exciting that art can do this," he says. "You can pick up a movie camera and tell a story, and some girl doesn't have to sell her body."

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'Sold' wants to change the world

Jeffrey Brown's feature film, based on Patricia McCormick's National Book Award-nominated young-adult novel, will screen in Salt Lake City as a fundraiser for the Calcutta campus of Hope House. The Academy Award-winning filmmaker and McCormick, who went on to co-author the best-selling "I Am Malala," will speak at the event.

When • Tuesday, Dec. 1; 4 p.m. tea; 5 to 6:30 p.m. dinner

Where • Saffron Valley East India Cafe, 26 E St., Salt Lake City; 801-203-3325

Screening • A preview of "Sold," which is scheduled to be released in theaters in March, will screen at 7 p.m.;

Where • Salt Lake City Main Library, 210 E. 400 South; post-screening discussion about sex trafficking, adapting "Sold" for the screen and the power of film to change the world.

Tickets • Suggested donation for dinner, $100; generosity.com/community-fundraising/hope-house-for-kids-born-into-brothels—2; the screening is free

Info about Hope House • headfirstdevelopment.org