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L.A. Times echoes Sands of Silence PBS premiere

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L.A. Times echoes Sands of Silence

WORLD Channel and PBS premiere

By SERGIO BURSTEIN WRITER  
SEPT. 23, 2020
3:04 PM

To celebrate the International Day against Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking in Women and Children (which is commemorated today) and, incidentally, Hispanic Heritage Month (which ends on October 15),  this weekend the celebrated documentary “Sands of Silence: Waves of Courage”, which deals with the aforementioned subject from a mostly Latino perspective, will be aired.

The work is inspired by Virginia Isaías, a Mexican woman who managed to escape with her 6-year-old daughter from a prostitution ring in Chiapas to finally settle in Anaheim, California, and who, after a decade of effort, rebuilt her life and became became an ambassador against sexual exploitation due to her pivotal role in the Human Trafficking Survivors Foundation.

This led to the L.A.-based Spanish documentary filmmaker Chelo Alvarez-Stehle  take a long look at a phenomenon that, unfortunately, remains active. And she did it through this work, which in addition to portraying the hardships of women belonging to various communities, she moved her to Mexico, Nepal and even her Basque Country of origin to deal with experiences from her own past.

“This is the culmination of a 12-year effort by the crew and the survivors of the film… Knowing that it is going to enter the hearts of millions of homes in the United States gives me hope. It means that countless people will be moved and inspired to act. ”

“Sands of Silence,” which has been screened in cities ranging from Shanghai to Sydney and at Yale, NYU, and UCLA universities, among others, has received numerous awards, including Best Documentary Feature from the Los Angeles Press Club Awards, Best Humanitarian Documentary at the Women’s International Film and Television Showcase, and both Best Documentary and Audience at the Malibu International Film Festival.

READ MORE at the LOS ANGELES TIMES

 

Ms. Magazine features Sands of Silence PBS premiere

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Sands of Silence airs and streams on WORLD Channel and PBS

Tune in on Sunday Sept. 27, 2020, 7pm PT / 10pm ET

or

Stream at WORLD Channel http://bit.ly/DW_SandsofSilence

Ms. Magazine – an interview with Sands of Silence director Chelo Alvarez-Stehle by author and scholar Carrie N. Baker 

“For the last two decades, journalist and filmmaker Chelo Alvarez-Stehle has traveled the world investigating and documenting women’s experiences of sexual exploitation and sex trafficking.

In her award-winning documentary film, Sands of Silence: Waves of Courage—premiering on PBS on Sunday, Sept. 27—Alvarez-Stehle brings together the stories of women she has filmed with her own story of abuse and those of her family members.

Shot in Spain, Nepal, Mexico and the U.S., the film explores the spectrum of sexual violence—from sex trafficking, to child molestation, to trusted adults sexualizing the young people in their care. Avarez-Stehle delves into the devastating and long-lasting impact of this violence, showing how childhood experiences of abuse make women vulnerable to future violence, and the ways girls and women are silenced or encouraged to deny the impact of this violence….”

“Sexual violence occurs along a spectrum, but the common denominator is silence,” Alvarez-Stehle told Ms.

The film begins on a beach in Spain with Alvarez-Stehle telling the story about how one summer, her nine-year-old sister was abducted by an adult man, who took her into a cabana and molested her. The incident “robbed us of our childhood’s magical aura,” says Alvarez-Stehle. Her family’s silence about the incident inspired her decades-long journey exploring the pandemic of sexual exploitation and trafficking across the globe.

The film then tells the story of Virginia Isaias—a Mexican-American woman who experienced child sex abuse, then as an adult was abducted with her infant daughter and forced into prostitution in Chiapas, Mexico. Isaias says her family taught her to be silent about her abuse, but she finds healing as she speaks out about her experiences.

READ MORE at Ms. Magazine

Sands of Silence Premieres WORLD Channel / PBS ~ Sun 9/27/2020

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Photo Credit: William Sparkes

WORLD Channel’s “Doc World” Series

& 174 PBS Stations

September 27, 2020 @ 7p PT / 10 p ET

Celebrating

International Day Against Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Women and Children

and

WORLD Channel Hispanic Heritage Month celebration

“This is a culmination of a 12-year effort,” says director Alvarez-Stehle, “on the part of the team and the survivors in the film. Knowing the film is going to enter the hearts of millions of households across the U.S. gives me hope. It means that countless people are going to be touched and moved to take action. Our film impacts and helps heal both victims and perpetrators,” she adds, “as we have witnessed in our presentations in prisons, universities and communities around the world.” The film has had an international impact campaign with screenings from Shanghai to Sydney and in universities from Yale, NYU and UCLA, to Oxford, Barcelona, Brisbane and Hiroshima.“This film is a tool that moves those who watch it to break their own silence or help others to do so,” adds Alvarez-Stehle, “and inspires them all to be part of the solution in the fight against the long standing sexual violence pandemic that affects us all.”

There are two ways to watch:

ON-AIR: WORLD Channel is a public media channel produced by GBH in Boston and carried by 174 PBS affiliate stations across the country.

To find your local WORLD station, go to http://www.worldchannel.org/

A pop-up will ask you to click and confirm your preferred local station. Once you have made your selection you will be able to navigate to the “schedule” page where you will find local tune-in information and local broadcast times.

If there is no broadcast channel for WORLD in your area, you can watch online: http://bit.ly/DW_SandsofSilence

ONLINE: WORLD Channel will also be streaming the film for 30 days starting the day of the broadcast: http://bit.ly/DW_SandsofSilence

WORLD Channel’s National Hispanic Heritage Month

Sept. 23 is International Day Against Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Women and Children, established by the World Conference of the Coalition Against Trafficking in coordination with the Women’s Conference held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in January 1999. On September 23, 1923 the first legal norm against child prostitution, known as Palacios Act 9.143, was enacted in the world.

 

 

Revista Acción_Argentina: En primera persona

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En primera persona

El cine es el camino elegido por una activista española para denunciar la violencia sexual. Historias de niñas esclavas,de víctimas de la prostitución forzada y su propia experiencia personal le permiten transformar el dolor en acción solidaria…

por Beatriz Chisleanchi

Mis viajes por el mundo como periodista me han llevado al corazón de mujeres que han sanado sus heridas

rompiendo sus silencios. Su eco está crean- do olas de valor –dice Chelo Álvarez-Stehle, directora del multipremiado documental Arenas de silencio. Olas de valor que se proyectó en Buenos Aires en el 2° Congreso Mundial Infancia sin Violencia y en el cine Cosmos, donde estuvo en cartel hasta el 4 de septiembre.

…Silencios y palabras, como parte de un mismo proceso, recorren el trabajo de Chelo Álvarez. Palabras individuales y colectivas, que salvan, que liberan. «La primera parte del título, Arenas de silencio, fue elegido desde que decidí incluir mi historia personal y la de mi familia. La segunda parte, Olas de valor, se me ocurrió cuando me di cuenta de que, en efecto, lo que empezó como denuncia del silencio, se había convertido en una oda al coraje de las supervivientes, y el efecto dominó de una persona rompiendo su silencio e inspirando a otra a romper el suyo propio, podría equipararse a una sucesión interminable de olas rompiéndose sobre la arena».

Asahi Shimbun: Film to become the ray of hope

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Asahi Shimbun 10/31/2018

Kibo no hikari ni naru eiga. Korekara mo.  Film to become the ray of hope.

Dome no Tabibito – Traveler to the Dome

Edited by Tetsuaki Otaki

I came to Hiroshima for the screening of my first documentary feature film, Sands of Silence at the Hiroshima City University.  I have been researching sexual exploitation and human trafficking in Asia and America for over 15 years.  This film shows light on that topic and also reveals the sexual abuse I and some members of my family suffered.

I became a journalist in Japan.  I came to Japan in 1990 as a scholarship student of European Economic Community, and became a Tokyo correspondent for El Mundo, Spanish daily newspaper. In October 1994, I covered the demonstration of the first Korean Comfort Women in front of the Japanese Diet in Tokyo. Their story impacted me and inspired me to keep writing on sexual violence and social justice. In 2008, I started to film this documentary film.

I visited the Peace Memorial Park on October 11th. Standing along the Motoyasu river and looking at the A-Bomb Dome, I remembered my father-in-law.  He was a physicist who had been involved in the Manhattan Project.  He was always reluctant to talk about it.  He was suffering.  As I am here in Hiroshima, I do feel we shall never repeat such tragedy.

In a world where nuclear weapons exist, there are two important things in order to pursue peace.  First, we have to realize that peace lies within our heart.  We need to realize the meaning of life and the purpose of life. Second, all the countries should unite and strongly demand denuclearization.

War is caused by those who have lost touch with their heart.  So are perpetrators of sexual violence and human trafficking. About 300 students came to see the film in Hiroshima.  One of them said, “Your film gives me a ray of hope.” I would like to continue to make such films from now on.

Japan’s JOSEI TEMBO Women’s Perspective magazine ~ Review of Sands of Silence

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Josei Tembo (Women’s Perspective Magazine) is a feminist publication by the Ichikawa Fusae Center for Women and Governance, based in Tokyo.

Ichikawa Fusae was a Japanese feminist, politician and a leader of the women’s suffrage movement.

Kimiko Kubo is the current editor of Josei Tembo magazine and the Managing Director of the Ichikawa Fusae Center for Women and Governance.https://www.sandsofsilence.org/wp-admin/admin.php?page=wpml-translation-management%2Fmenu%2Ftranslations-queue.php&return_url=%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Fpost%3D32978%26action%3Dedit%26lang%3Den%26message%3D6&job_id=171

Ms. Kubo wrote this three-page feature article after viewing Sands of Silence: Waves of Courage at our Cervantes Institute screening in Tokyo in October 2018.

It is remarkable that the article made the cover of their magazine, given the scarce coverage that issues of sexual violence and trafficking have in Japan.