Encounters with Sex Trafficking
Chelo Alvarez is an award winning filmmaker. Her work on the documentary “Tin Girls,” compelled her not only to produce another film about human sex trafficking but to make a difference in the lives of her protagonists. Be sure to watch her video interview in the screening theater
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I grew up in Rioja, a region in northern Spain well known for its wines, just south of the Basque Country. I was the eldest of seven siblings. My mother was a progressive intellectual, but my father and the society of the time wanted her to stay home and take care of us. He was a surgeon and became involved in national politics because people in the region loved him (he wouldn’t charge for surgery to low-income patients) and cherished his honesty. He was a great orator, too, and my mother used to help him write his speeches. As a teenager, while under the Franco dictatorship, I remember my father used to listen to the BBC Radio news in Spanish. I can't help seeing a parallelism with my listening to Radio Pacifica in the US today under Bush, a president who thinks the world is his to play with. Now I see that both my father and I were desperately trying to listen to unbiased news.
It was a combination of my father’s quest for a fair and just world and my mother's progressive views on society and spiritual thirst that set me on my journey. I had a double purpose: to fight injustice, and discover the meaning of life.
In that spirit, I enrolled in Medical School at the University of Navarra, as I thought life might be found in the human heart. I certainly did not find it hidden under the ribs of the corpse I examined in Anatomy class (on a funny note, we used to call the corpse "Franco," as the dictator, barely alive those days, was considered to be a walking corpse.)
In the 90’s, I lived in Japan and was starting to explore the world as a journalist. I was looking for stories with a soul. For years I wrote about people who had suffered indelible wounds, such as the Korean ‘comfort’ women of the Japanese WWII Army, the Australian Aboriginal women of the ‘stolen generation,’ Native Americans in Reservations, Death Row inmates in US prisons, and the millions affected by the arsenic-contaminated water wells in Bangladesh. Yet, in spite of the horror they depicted, and like the individuals who inspired them, most of those stories contained a strong thread of hope.
My reportages were being published in Japan and Spain, where I was correspondent to El Mundo daily, and contributor to GEO, Planeta Humano, El Semanal, Siete Leguas, Ajo Blanco, and other magazines.) They were read in Latin America too. But I felt that the issues I was writing about were so important that they needed to have a deeper impact, reach larger audiences, and for that I needed to turn my words into images.
After moving from Tokyo to Los Angeles, I dove into the documentary filmmaking world. Then, Spain's SGAE/Fundación Autor (WGA’s equivalent) gave me a grant to take a course on documentary directing at the Escuela de Cine y TV in Cuba, lead by Belkis Vega, probably the best documentarian in the country. You cannot get more real, more non-fiction than what you experience getting to know the lively people of this exuberant island, their history and difficult living conditions. I fell in love with documentaries and their raison d'être.
A couple of weeks after I returned to Los Angeles from Cuba, I got a call from Canal+ Spain. They wanted to make a documentary based on a reportage I had written for Planeta Humano magazine about child trafficking in the Himalayas. I had traveled in Nepal and India for years and Canal+ knew I could help them. When they contacted me, they already had a director/writer for hire (Miguel Bardem, son of the legendary film director Jose Luis Bardem, and cousin of actor Javier Bardem.) I was hired as Interviewer, Researcher, Consultant, and Assistant Director for the resulting documentary: Niñas de Hojalata (Tin Girls, 2003). I also played a key part in the overall production. While on location, Miguel Bardem, who watched me shoot non-stop with my small camera, kept telling me: "You are so eager! You have to make your own documentaries!"
Sold in America is a modern-day tale of sex slavery that weaves the compelling stories of women sold at an early age and their struggle to find freedom. This horrendous crime is happening in our own backyards, and we need to stop it. The documentary seeks to alert and educate audiences on how to recognize victims of sex trafficking, and to open the eyes of those who are captive by letting them know there is a way out. The film shows that sex trafficking has become commonplace in the US, and we can only stop it by creating awareness.
My first encounter with sex trafficking took place in the Himalayas, in the 90’s, when I was at a turning point in my career and was experimenting with documentary filmmaking. I was drawn in by the scope of the suffering and endurance of the people I was interviewing. I was touched by their implausible survival and the humanity they shared. While we were in production for Tin Girls, one of the survivors approached us and asked for help. “So many professors and journalists come to hear our stories, but nothing ever changes for us,” she said. We asked her what she would need and she said, “We have a dream of having a small workshop where we can grind spices and sell them.” Their dream became a reality when three months later we founded the Masala Project and opened a small spice workshop in Hetauda, southern Nepal, with the help of HimRights, a Nepali NGO. It was an amazing opportunity for the survivors, as nobody wanted to be associated with them, let alone give them work. Unfortunately, one of the survivors we had interviewed died of Aids before the spice factory was opened. More info at: www.masalaproject.org.
When I came back from Nepal, I realized that sex trafficking was rampant in the US and in the summer of 2003, I decided to start my own documentary. During preproduction, I wrote several articles on the issue for Spain's El Mundo daily and GEO magazine, and for L.A.'s Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión.
A few months later I heard of Maria Suarez. At 15, Maria was sold for $200 to a 68-year-old Mexican brujo, or witch doctor, who kept her captive as a sex slave for five years. Maria ended up spending 22 years in prison for a crime she did not commit.
I first visited Maria as she awaited deportation at the INS Detention Center in San Pedro, CA, just after having been awarded parole. I did not find a person jaded from years of captivity, but one that had recovered her dignity. Years later, recalling our encounter, Maria told me: “I was so tired of the media at that time. But you did not come as a reporter, you came as a sister, as a person wanting to help me.” She had learned to forgive and was focused on rebuilding her future. Maria’s story would become the heart of my documentary.
Early in 2007, I was fortunate enough to meet Carole Dean, founder of From the Heart Productions during a Trailblazer course she lead for filmmakers, which I highly recommend. Carole Dean is the author of two great books for the independent filmmaker: The Art of Film Funding: Alternative Financing Concepts and The Art of Manifesting: Creating Your Future. She encouraged all of her students to apply for one of her grants and I went for it wholeheartedly. In the fall I was notified that we had won the 2007 Roy W. Dean LA Film Grant competition. I was ecstatic. It was the industry’s first believer in Sold in America.
The grant offers the equivalent of $50,000 in goods and services. The way these grants started is really interesting, Carole Dean tells the story of her father, Roy W. Dean, “who believed in helping those who helped themselves… He knew that if a passionate filmmaker had the tools to start shooting, that filmmaker would do whatever else it took to get his project completed.” (More info on the Roy W. Dean Film & Video Grants at: www.fromtheheartproductions.com).
The main obstacle I've had to overcome is fear. Actually, at times I feel like a matador in front of a bull… an imaginary bull that disappears as soon as I gather my strength and wrap its horns with my cape.
I believe the creativity process is a mirror of life: obstacles pop up when you least expect them. However, it is not about the obstacles but about one’s drive to thrive.
The root of documentary filmmaking is your set of values. Once you know what moves you, why you are embarked in this journey, you can go back to it again and again. It becomes your safe harbor. For me, it is the need to express that the essence of life lies in feeling our humanity. That no matter what happens in life, our heart will help us succeed, and we will change the world.
Sold In America is still under production. But those with a particular interest or reason to see the work-in-progress can send an email to: innerlensdocs@sbcglobal.net.
SOLD IN AMERICA Documentary:
www.soldinamerica.net (under construction)
TIN GIRLS Documentary & The Masala Project:
www.masalaproject.org
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