Prostitution film struggled for its screening
By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer
Filmmaker Gayle Ferraro says denial keeps the western world from acknowledging its complicity in the billion-dollar business of prostitution and human trafficking in Southeast Asia.
Denial, she says, prompted 50 film festival programmers — all men — from accepting her disturbing documentary, "Anonymously Yours," which looks at the lives of Myanmar prostitutes and the socio-economic conditions that produce them.
'Anonymously Yours'
So credit Ferraro — who says she is drawn to issues that scare Americans — with producing a film few people wanted her to make about a subject few have the stomach to deeply consider.
"I think 'Anonymously Yours' is undeniable," she says.
It was programmers from the Montreal World Film Festival and AFI Fest — both women — who first agreed to screen the film.
Despite the slow start, the film has been generating interest.
"Anonymously Yours" opens today after a successful showing at the Hawai'i International Film Festival.
The documentary is built around interviews with four women from Myanmar: "Zu-Zu," who was sold into prostitution after being raped twice as a child; "Cho-Cho," who was first exploited at the age of 16 on the lure of a office job; "San-San," who sells herself to Western clients to support her children; and "Yi-Yi," who worked as a matchmaker and cook at a brothel before becoming a social worker.
Their accounts are horrifying. Zu-Zu explains how her mother stepped on her stomach to induce an abortion so that she could return to work. However, Ferraro is careful to present the stories within the larger context of an impoverished region that has accepted prostitution as a necessary engine of commerce.
In Myanmar, Ferraro says, there are sex shops operating behind businesses on every block.
"As boys, you see your brothers, father, uncles all going to these places," she says. "They can't afford any other entertainment. So for a few cents they can have a drink and a girl."
Ferraro and her crew filmed the interviews in a series of secret locations, posing as "obnoxious American tourists" to throw off watchful government eyes.
