You guys made this happen

Do our upvotes actually change anything out there in the real world?

They already have - check this out.

Let me do a quick recap here:

In 2011, some of my local friends disappeared from Vietnam.

I went back on a seemingly impossible mission to find them - and unbelievably, I actually did.

My friends had been smuggled into China and sold as baby-making machines for local men.

By the time I found them in 2014, my friends each had a baby in China, and faced the heartwrenching choice between their children and their own freedom.

Theirs is an incredible story which can really make a difference against the global human trafficking crisis.

I wanted to share it as a feature documentary, and struggled for years to get the project the attention and support it needed.

That all changed last year, right here on Imgur.

According to Imgur's best of 2016, we reached 6 million people right here. 1000s of people from 67 countries on 6 continents chipped in to help us finish the film.

It was huge - but it didn't stop there.

Since then, our story has been shared on VICE and CNN, and the BBC's Claire Harris is producing a 10-part podcast on the story, to come out later this year.

And the documentary? It's looking great, and is on target to be finished in September. Right now I'm working with some filmmakers in Denmark to get it finished.

Last week, for the very first time, I shared the artwork for the film. Putting it together was a surprisingly fascinating process, and I want to share it with you.

The poster had to show the essence of the film in a single image. It had to be powerful - but I also wanted it to mean something.

It started with 2 questions: What's the essence of the film? and, How can we show that?

My friend had been kidnapped and sold to a trafficker who threatened to kill her unless she went with the stranger who'd come to buy her, to have his children.

'Kill me,' she said.

That desperation and defiance is the essence of 'Sisters For Sale', and this girl showed it perfectly.

Next to her, I put photos of the girls at the centre of the story: my kidnapped friends.

Three of these four girls were kidnapped in separate incidents. One escaped, only to be kidnapped again.

These photos were shown to me by their families - some of the few small treasures they had left of the sisters and daughters they'd lost.

There are some other photos, too - a laughing child, a strutting teen, a family torn down the middle. They appear as ghosts, semi-transparent, a fragile link to a fading past.

Like a lot of things on the poster, there's an illusion of symmetry and order which crumbles on closer inspection.

Nothing is quite right here - I wanted to leave your eyes wandering around, in search of balance and a place to rest, while discovering each new detail.

I wanted to add some context (and beauty, as I've done throughout the film) so I put in a landscape of where the girls are from: a village outside Sapa, Vietnam.

At first glace, it looks idyllic - but there's also something twisted and dark about it.

When you see the poster, one of the first things that strikes your eye is a point of bright light above the title. It takes a while to work out what it is - a motorbike with dark, faceless riders.

These are the traffickers. Their headlight cuts across the middle of the poster, like a blade at the exposed throat of the girl.

This is the key to the whole image, hidden in plain sight - the reason for the girl's defiance, for her separation from the village below, and for treasuring the photographs left behind.

We're putting the same love and care into the film itself, and I can't wait to share it with you in the fall.

Without you, there would be no poster, no film, nothing. You've made a huge difference already, and I'm super excited to see where the film will take us!

TL;DR: You're awesome. Keep doing what you do.

...If you didn't see our posts last year and have no idea what I'm talking about, here's one: http://imgur.com/gallery/Hvnvb
You can also check out the trailer etc here on our site: http://www.sistersforsale.com