So most of my blog has been bitching about not being able to get into a film festival. Well today that all comes to an end. Finally.
This morning I was invited to a festival. I can’t say who, where, when, or what, but I can say I am thrilled!
We started this film in August of 2005, and we will finally get to see it up on a screen in front of an audience. I think that is every directors dream, and finally mine has come true.
I must admit, I do want one of these posters. I know a few people who are down in DC right now, but they left before I even knew this existed. DC has an ordinance to keep prostitutes off the street for 240 hours. I have been reading a bunch of comments on other blogs about this story, and inevitably people jump to the politicians as prostitute joke, but I will have to disagree with that. Maybe some politicians go to prostitutes, and even some get “favors” from lobbyists, but just because they screw people doesn’t qualify them to be called a prostitute. When a prostitute does it, the party getting screwed enjoys the screwing.
This being Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I think I should take time to reflect. MLK was a great man, and there are tons of quotes that I am sure many people are familiar with. One of the quotes that I have begun to reflect on recently is
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”.
I obviously do not live my life in silence. I try to shine light on things that matter. It is a difficult path to take, especially when there are so many people against you. I try to look at things from all points of view. When I started this film, I had no idea where I personally stood on the issue of prostitution. Now when I read articles or editorials in the paper, I don’t know how I can remain silent.
Just last week, the Providence Journal had an editorial about Rhode Island’s legal prostitution. I read the paper, and think to myself, just because an “expert” says something does it make it fact? Donna Hughes said “Rhode Island will soon be the sex industry capital of the United States.” That just doesn’t seem to jive with me.
It seems like everyone uses propaganda to prove their point. I actually got into doing this film because I heard that exact same thing from a priest when I was a student at Providence College. So one of the first things I looked at was advertising, and The Providence Phoenix had about half the ads as The Boston Phoenix. In Providence, prostitution is legal, in Boston it is illegal. I have followed the erotic section in the papers since 2005, there has been no change in the prostitution laws in either state, but the amount of ads in both have grown, with Boston two to three times larger than Providence. (If Donna Hughes was right, wouldn’t the erotic section in Providence grow at a faster rate?)
I digress, lets get back to MLK. Is there ever a good time to remain silent? It seems at some points, silence has been forced upon me. Now, I have recently been asked by someone in California to work towards unionizing the sex workers in RI. I never wanted to actually get involved in prostitution, I just wanted to make a film, but I do think that making the film opened up my eyes to so many things. How can I remain silent on something that does matter, even if it only matters to a few?
I have been saving up for the licensing of the one commercial song I have in the film and of course I have had a set back. My water heater exploded! Since I am going to have a delay, I figured I would let out a few clips. Some of the clips are in the film, some are not. This one is.
I had talked to Nick (the editor, camera man, and best worker a first time director could ever have) about releasing clips before. He was not into releasing this one. I think although he finds it funny, he is an American man, and I am sure he would say we should try not to offend everyone.
What I think is interesting about the clip is what I found interesting about Jen. She was straight to the point with all the questions I asked. Sure, she exaggerates a bit, but she never refused to answer any of the questions I asked.
I met many more women than just “Heather, Jen, and Danielle” who are in my film. The stories I could tell…and I think I might.
One thing I did find interesting was how the women always referred to “American” men, and their ideas of “America”. I would ask all sorts of questions, like what did the men ask for, how do they charge. One time one of the women said to me that they charged black men more. I asked her to explain, and she said in a thick accent “It is because we tiny down there” I sat there and wondered if you have to be discriminated against, does it make the discrimination less hurtful if it is because of the size of your manhood?
When I started this film, I needed to come up with a name for the production company. Previously, I worked for a while doing a record label. For that I came up with “We Can Do It” for the ASCAP. The name was from the Rosie the Riveter campaign. (The name of the record company was Third Eye Records) This time when I had to come up with a name I decided to look back to my own history.
I grew up in a home with my Va Voo (Portuguese for grandfather). There were two things he always said. One thing I am pretty sure is a swear, and I don’t know how to spell it. The other thing was “It’s Not Easy”. He would say “It’s not easy” so many times my mother t-shirts, sweat shirts, and hoodies with It’s Not Easy ironed on the front.
If anything, making this film has not been easy. Every thing that has gone wrong, I try to take with a grain of salt and say “It’s not easy”. My computer crashed, “It’s not easy”. The new computer can’t take the old software, hey “It’s not easy”. I can’t find an hour of translations “It’s not easy”. I guess this is sort of like my SERENITY NOW! chant.
On a side note, I was excited when Barak Obama won the election. And like many others I, when I heard that the Obama family would be getting a dog I was interested in the story. I am very much an animal lover, I even feed the birds at my house. This week it came out that the Obamas might be getting a Portuguese Water Hound. I hope he does. I mostly have had labs growing up, but I would love to see a dog representing my Mother land in the white house. My fatherland would be the Irish setter, but that dog isn’t in the running.
The New York Times and International Herald Tribune have just published a story on prostitution in S. Korea. While making this film I looked back to the history of prostitution in Korea, and found everything in the article to be true. Most of the time I would search, I would only find articles on “Comfort Women”, so it is good to have this article shed light on Korea and the United State’s participation in Korea’s domestic prostitution.
Of the 3 women I followed, 2 of them grew up in Korea. “Heather” the main character in the documentary, came to the United States in the 90’s after the international monetary fund crisis. “Jen” met a man working on a US base. She came to the US being disowned by her family.
Of all the footage I have in the film, I must say the footage of Korea is most disturbing. I did not film it myself. (I met a guy through myspace, and he filmed and sent the tapes to me.) It was difficult to get anyone to film in Korea, and eventually when I did get someone to film, they were attacked.
I have been to Amsterdam, I have seen the red-light district, but in Korea it is different. In some sections they have barber-poles letting you know there are women available inside. In other sections there are streets that seem like they have garage after garage filled with women. The only opening is a window where you can see 10-15 faces of women for sale.
I don’t know how the women in South Korea are treated, I did not see that first hand, but pictures say a thousand words. If anything, the women from South Korea who work in RI had great living conditions. Satellite TV, a cook, a bar-b-que area, if it wasn’t for the job I would say they had a better living condition than I had. And as for the government’s participation in RI’s prostitution, well I guess that depends on if you consider being a customer participating?
Have you read “The Secret”? I have not. I know it is popular, and a bunch of people believe in the book, but I never got around to reading it. I did, however, catch a reference to it on one of my favorite shows “My Life on the D-List with Kathy Griffin”. There was this episode where her assistant and the assistant to the assistant wanted to go to Tahiti (I think that was the island). Anyway, they wrote it on a paper and stuck it on the wall and it came true. It was probably almost a year ago that I saw that, and I figured even if I didn’t read The Secret, maybe I could get it to work for me. For the last 10 months I have been working with a cardboard over my head at work that says 1) Get in Film Festival 2) Get Distribution 3) Become Healthy.
Today I took that cardboard down. Not that I have given up, although I pretty much am done with the festival dream. I just felt like I had to do something, this being a new year and all. I have been in this holding pattern for a long time, I needed a change.
After taking down the sign, going out back for a smoke (yeah #3 hasn’t worked out too well either) I came back to my desk and checked my email. I had an email from someone who could possibly do something to get the film shown.
I am still starting to go through on plans for self distribution, the dreaded plan B, but getting an email from someone at a company gives me some sort of hope. I guess we will have to see.
