COSTA RICA: New Film Provides Window on Pedophile Rings

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Néfer Muñoz

SAN JOSE, May 21 2002 (IPS) - Complete with action, suspense and drama, a new film shot in Costa Rica sheds new light on the largely invisible phenomenon of commercial sexual exploitation suffered by thousands of children in Central America.

The 92-minute “Password: A Glance in the Dark”, shot by an entirely Costa Rican production team and featuring a 100 percent Costa Rican cast, will begin to show in local theatres in June.

The film narrates the fictional story of a 12-year-old girl from an upper-middle-class family who is drawn in over the Internet by a member of a network of pedophiles and abducted into the world of drugs, violence and commercial sex.

“The idea of the film is to make art educational” and raise awareness on a very real, but largely invisible, problem, Ingo Niehaus, the movie’s scriptwriter and executive producer, told IPS.

After its premiere in Costa Rica, the film will be presented in other Latin American countries, Europe and international film festivals.

“We aren’t talking about a drama that happens to a lawyer in Boston; this is something that is going on here,” said Niehaus, who first got the idea for the film on a trip to Canada in 2000, when he read a report in The National Post that referred to child prostitution in Costa Rica.

“The report made me indignant, because under its veneer of objectivity, it praised the owner of a child prostitution centre in San Jose,” he explained.

Niehaus called director Andrés Heidenreich, who agreed to direct and edit the film.

“Password” was shot and edited in digital format in July and August 2001. The completed film was then taken to New York, where it was converted to 35-mm format.

In Central America, where practically no feature-length fictional films are produced, the imminent premiere of “Password” has awakened great curiosity among movie-goers, who are used to seeing almost exclusively Hollywood productions.

“This film deals with a Latin American issue, but it is of universal interest. It is the most important film that has been shot on Costa Rican soil in the country’s history,” Gabriel González, a movie director with the governmental Film Centre, told IPS.

González said he was impressed by the quality of “Password”, a low-budget film shot in different parts of San Jose.

Activists note that the commercial sexual exploitation of minors is a taboo subject in Central America, and that many local authorities avoid addressing the problem due to social prejudice or indifference.

Criminal rings involved in child trafficking, prostitution, pornography and sex tourism operate in all of the countries of Central America, according to Casa Alianza, the Latin America branch of the NYC-based rights watchdog Covenant House.

“We cannot say how many children are sexually exploited in Central America. That would be like asking how many drug traffickers there are. What we can say is that there are thousands,” Bruce Harris, the director of Casa Alianza, which works on behalf of street children in Central America and Mexico, told IPS.

A team of Casa Alianza researchers infiltrated pedophile rings to produce the first report on the commercial sexual exploitation of minors in the region, which was released earlier this year.

The networks are made up of truck drivers, taxi drivers, hoteliers, bar owners, lawyers, pimps and others, many of whom are highly specialised in the sordid business.

“Password” shows how a member of one of the pedophile rings uses the Internet to deceive 12-year-old Carla, who is later abducted.

The film features characters from all walks of life, from society’s outcasts to lawyers and wealthy entrepreneurs who sponsor and finance the shady business.

“It was an incredible experience. I hope this film helps raise public awareness,” 15-year-old actress María Elena Oreamuno, who was cast in the role of Carla, told IPS.

Carla, the protagonist, and her mother are left by her father, the family’s sole provider, and are forced to go and live with her grandmother. The mother has to go out and find a job, while Carla evades her problems and lets off steam by surfing the Internet for hours, where she is contacted by a pedophile.

“It is something that could happen to any child or teenager,” said Oreamuno, who urged parents to talk to their children about the dangers lurking in modern life.

The Casa Alianza study found that the Internet is one of the main tools, or weapons, used by pedophile networks. Central America alone has 173 web sites with direct or indirect links promoting the region as a destination for sex tourists, where it is possible to have sex with youngsters.

“This film is a very courageous denunciation of a phenomenon that many people want to keep under wraps,” actor Marco Martín, who plays an affluent attorney in the movie, told IPS.

Leading Costa Rican artists like concert pianist and composer Manuel Obregón, poet Ana Istar, director of photography Fernando Montero and actor Gerardo Arce took part in producing the film.

“‘Password’ is a window that allows us to see a problem which affects all social classes, a problem that many want to keep invisible,” said Martín.