The Production
In
the Philippines, prostitution is not just lucrative business – it’s an industry. Hope in Heaven, by filmmaker
Meredith Ralston, examines the country’s sex trade and the young women
it traps. Seen through the eyes of two idealistic female students and a
male university professor, the film captures two years of Mila’s
life and the people who befriend her, the poverty and squalor she lives
in, and her hope that one day a foreigner will rescue her. It is poignant
and heartbreaking.
Directed by Meredith Ralston and narrated by Kiefer Sutherland, Hope
in Heaven is part of a five-year development project funded by the Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA) in cooperation with Mount
Saint Vincent University (MSVU) and Saint Mary’s University, of Halifax,
Nova Scotia, Canada. Ralston, a member of MSVU’s Women’s Studies
and Political Studies Departments, was the co-project director in the Philippines’ project.
It was here she met Mila and felt compelled to depict her story on film
for the world to see. Hope in Heaven is her fifth documentary.
The film depicts the social hygiene
clinic where hundreds of young women line up daily for health checks in
primitive conditions. Following these visits, the women are issued passes
certifying their good health. They wear these badges around their necks
or on their bikinis while dancing for the Western men. Interviews with
prostitutes, mama-sans, community workers, academics and clients expose
the complexity of prostitution in two very different cultures. More sobering,
seventeen girls (some as young as ten years old) are rescued from a casa,
a local brothel and caught disturbingly on film.
Once the film was completed, Ralston knew she needed a powerful voice
to convey the magnitude of the devastating conditions in Angeles City.
Her first and only choice for the narration was actor Kiefer Sutherland.
With strong Canadian roots and a stronger social conscience, Sutherland
was readily on board.
|
“They call me dumb-dumb.”
Mila, a 20-year-old bar girl trapped in the Philippines sex tourism industry. |
Who
We Meet…
Mila — a Filipino bar girl, 20, from the provinces who is supporting
her family from afar. She doesn’t like what she’s doing but
hopes to meet an American man and get out of poverty and out of Heaven.
Sweet, innocent and probably lying about her age, she loves Angela and
Steve and follows them around the squalor in which she lives.
Agnes — a Filipino community worker, 45, from Angeles who works
with the bar girls of Fields Avenue. She's seen a lot and has lost
hope that she can help many of the girls, but she still tries.
Angela — a University student, 22, from Truro, Nova Scotia.
From a working class family, she is down to earth, optimistic and she
loves everything about the Philippines. Angela has a Filipino boyfriend and
wants to stay in the county as long as she can.
Jessica — a University student, 23, from Toronto. Jessica is
from a middle class family, is self confident and idealistic. She hates
the
sex trade, the city and being a white woman in a Filipino town.
Stephen — Canadian, 45, ex-cop from Spryfield, Nova Scotia. He
is currently a Psychology professor at MSVU in Halifax. Stephen is a
self-reflective, politically correct white man in a sexual environment
and has a hard time with the men's chummy attitude towards him
and shows it. The attention paid to him by the young girls makes him
angry, sad and uncomfortable.
All profits from the film will be donated to the Women Helping Women
Center in Angeles, Philippines, and specifically to Mila, who suffers
from tuberculosis and quite possibly, HIV. |
