Vic Sarin’s hot-button expose documentary Desert Riders peels back the curtain on thousands of boys trafficked to the Middle East to work as camel race jockeys.

Look for the Canadian documentary in theaters and on TV sets worldwide after it receives its international premiere at IDFA in Amsterdam.

Or at least that’s the plan, says Desert Riders producer Noemi Weis, who debuted the film at the Vancouver International Film Festival this week.

“People talk about the global trafficking of children, but this is for the sake of a multi-million dollar sport,” Weis tells Playback Daily, betraying the outrage which kept her going for three years to complete the film.

The United Arab Emirates’ so-called “sport of kings” calls for young boys, prized for their lightness, to be exploited as camel jockeys, creating black market in children as young as three being sold by their parents into the sport.

Weis and her crew, led by director Sarin, travelled to the Middle East, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Mauritania to interview the camel owners, child traffickers and the young boys themselves to uncover a sport built on the sweat and suffering of children.

Predictably, accessibility was difficult.

“In Mauritania, we were virtually under house arrest. We went with an invitation from UNICEF and once we got there, the government wouldn’t allow the use of the cameras,” Weis recalls.

Entry into the Sudan was barred by a civil war, and it took months to get into the UAE.

“It was a very difficult production, working days and nights because of time differences, and staying up many nights to speak to the film’s subjects,” Weis adds.

Canada’s Documentary channel will air Desert Riders in 2012, as will TV5 in Quebec.

Besides Desert Riders, 10 Canadian films in all will receive their world bow in Vancouver as part of the Canadian Images sidebar.

These include Dianne Whelan’s 40 Days at Base Camp, which demystifies the ascent of Mount Everest by showing how the world’s highest mountain, once a revered and sacred place, today is commercialized and crowded by international climbers.

40 Days at Basecamp has its first screening on Oct. 7, followed by a second on Oct. 14.

And Tracy Smith’s theatrical drama Everything and Everyone, shot in Maple Ridge, BC with a cast that includes Gabrielle Rose as a mother coping with dementia and Ryan Robbins as her grown son caring for her at home, is debuting Oct. 12 in Vancouver.

Also debuting at VIFF is Derek Franson’s horror picture Comforting Skin, to receive separate Oct. 10 and 12 screenings after just finishing post production in late September.

And Vancouver has booked a world bow for Frank Wolf’s On the Line, where the filmmaker and a friend biked, hiked, rafted and kayaked along the GPS track of a proposed pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat, B.C. to uncover the truth about the venture.

The Vancouver International Film Festival is set to run to Oct. 14.