Its deck-the-halls-with-boughs-of title notwithstanding, the independent film Holly has nothing to do with the holiday season — unless you count the fact that this just-barely-fictionalized movie about the heartbreaking world of child prostitution in Cambodia opened on Black Friday.

The Press-Telegram’s story on the film reveals that the title role of Holly, a 12-year-old Vietnamese girl who has been sold by her impoverished family and smuggled into Cambodia, is played by 17 year-old Westminster High senior Thuy Nguyen, who in real life immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam only a few years ago.

The story also supplies some pretty horrifying statistics regarding the financial size of the world’s sex-slave industry, which at $12 billion annually is the third-most lucrative criminal activity in the world behind drugs and weapons. For more information — and opportunities to help — go to www.redlightchildren.org

In case you want to fold Holly into your incessant shopping, it’s playing at Edwards Cinemas at Long Beach’s Towne Center and the Westminster Mall.

Tags: child prostitution, Holly, Thuy Nguyen, Westminster High School