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For years, Jeanette Maier lived in New Orleans and successfully ran the family business, but that came to an end in 2001 -- the business in question was an upscale brothel which Jeanette managed with her mother while her daughter worked as a prostitute, and an FBI investigation closed them down. Almost ten years later, Jeanette Maier tells her side of the story in the documentary The Canal Street Madam, in which Maier talks about how she got into the sex trade, the sort of clientele her house attracted, her relationship with her family and how the publicity from the arrest and subsequent trial nearly ruined her life. Maier also shares her views on the judicial system and the legal status of prostitution in America, and we're given a glimpse of her efforts to start a new life and career after being transformed into a scandalous public figure. Directed by Cameron Yates, The Canal Street Madam received its world premiere at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival. It wasn't the first film about Maier and her misadventures; the made-for-television feature The Madame's Family: The Truth About The Canal Street Brothel started Annabella Sciorra as Jeanette Maier and Ellen Burstyn and Dominique Swain as her mother and daughter.