Viral Twitter thread about woman's sex trafficking turned into a movie

A viral Twitter thread about one woman’s experience of sex trafficking during a 2015 trip to Florida has turned into a movie.

The movie, Zola is inspired by A’Ziah “Zola” King’s 148-tweet thread and a subsequent story in Rolling Stone magazine about it. The movie is about a Detroit waitress and exotic dancer Zola whose customer Stefani convinces her to travel to Florida for a weekend. But the trip soon turns sinister when Zola realizes they are traveling with a pimp who has other intentions.

King in an interview said, “What I do is sex work and that’s what I’m used to and that’s what I’m confident in doing,” adding, “But the difference in here is I was put into a situation that the conversation turned into sex trafficking.”

Her account of the trip went viral on social media and started trending under the hashtag #TheStory. Among the people she named, some disagreed with her depiction of what happened.

She asserted, “I’m a completely different person in a completely different space. At this point in time when I watch the movie, I can enjoy the artistic side of it. … This is many different conversations. This is a sex work conversation, this is a race conversation. This is a feminism conversation.”

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom actress Taylour Paige plays Zola while Riley Keough, known for “Mad Max: Fury Road,” portrays Stefani.

Speaking about her role preparation, Paige said that she was a little bit stressed at first because I didn’t get to hang out with Zola.

“Zola” released on June 30.