Marketbound
Marketbound, a feature length documentary, follows the lives of Cambodian women teetering on the razor's edge of destitution. Shot almost entirely in Southeast Asia, Marketbound's quest is simple: explain how a generation of Cambodian women's lives is being upended amid the push for the country to move towards economic and social "development."
Seventy-five percent of the Cambodian population survives on subsistence farming, some of which is often subsidized by sending daughters to Phnom Penh. Once in the city, a harsh reality awaits many of them. Life for tens of thousands of Cambodian women is one of low-paying jobs and prostitution. It is a cycle — from the farm to a brothel — that shows no signs of slowing.
Marketbound profiles this story in human terms, using a mix of verité footage and personal interviews. The film's narrative is propelled by three central stories that proceed separately, but ultimately become intertwined as their paths cross, both literally and metaphorically.
Among the stories Marketbound follows is:
These characters — along with others, that include brothel owners and their customers, economists and policy makers — provide the film's focus and give viewers an insider's understanding into how and why Cambodia has tumbled into an economic abyss.
In addition to these characters, Marketbound also examines Cambodia's recent history — a country engaged in a war of auto-genocide and its aftermath. The civil war and reign of Pol Pot, of course, did much to destroy Cambodia in the 1970s. However the history of its aftermath has been even more destructive. Following the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund presented a plan to pull Cambodia out of its economic abyss. They would do it through a set of stringent economic policies that included slashing school funding and privatizing previously government-run entities such as hospitals and public works programs. The goal was to get the country on its feet by providing economic incentives and cutting government graft while encouraging private foreign investment that would, argued the World Bank and IMF, jump start Cambodia's flagging economy.
Fifteen years later, Marketbound looks carefully at Cambodia, to see if this economic liberalization has worked for its people.
When these newly-privatized agencies began to charge for services like health care and education, millions of Cambodians already living at subsistence levels suddenly had no access to these services.
As a result, the cost of these services has skyrocketed, making medical treatment and education in Cambodia prohibitively expensive. These services have become accessible only to the wealthy or often to those who will sacrifice (usually) a daughter to the brothels or factories for the sake of the rest of the family. Today's young rural women are wage earners for the poorest of the poor, born into a world where they too will become "marketbound."
Marketbound tells this story in its entirety: the plight of the farming family, the life of a daughter displaced to Phnom Penh, and the fight of a social worker struggling to improve and build on an already-fragile economy.
What Viewers Will See
In watching this film, viewers will see poverty and its participants — international organizations, governments, foreign investors, and a few of the three billion people living in poverty around the world today.
There is a blunt paradox at work here. For the past decade casual observers often assume that because manufacturing jobs are moving overseas to nations such as Cambodia, the standard of living there must be going up. But recent events show these economic changes have wreaked havoc on this nation's underclass. Today, many question not just the effectiveness of the policies but the morality in continuing them.
Marketbound will follow the main characters and their stories in a verité form. Additionally, the film incorporates other interviews featuring a variety of characters, including factory workers, brothel owners, sex trade customers, and Cambodian policy makers.
These interviews, along with ones featuring noted economists on either side of the spectrum, Jagdish Bagwati and Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel Prize winner in Economics), will directly address the lives of characters featured in Marketbound. (A rough cut of Marketbound will be shown to them so they can comment directly and respond to characters in the film).
Through these personal stories where real lives are at stake, Marketbound will illuminate this complex story in human terms while offering a cogent economic analysis of where the country has been, where it is now, and what can be done to reverse this downward spiral.
Marketbound, a feature length documentary, follows the lives of Cambodian women teetering on the razor's edge of destitution. Shot almost entirely in Southeast Asia, Marketbound's quest is simple: explain how a generation of Cambodian women's lives is being upended amid the push for the country to move towards economic and social "development."
Seventy-five percent of the Cambodian population survives on subsistence farming, some of which is often subsidized by sending daughters to Phnom Penh. Once in the city, a harsh reality awaits many of them. Life for tens of thousands of Cambodian women is one of low-paying jobs and prostitution. It is a cycle — from the farm to a brothel — that shows no signs of slowing.
Marketbound profiles this story in human terms, using a mix of verité footage and personal interviews. The film's narrative is propelled by three central stories that proceed separately, but ultimately become intertwined as their paths cross, both literally and metaphorically.
Among the stories Marketbound follows is:
- The farming family that is coming to terms with their growing debt, rising healthcare costs, a shrinking agricultural market and the economic reality of sending a daughter to work in a brothel.
- The young country girl who works as a sex worker to support herself and her family's healthcare and schooling.
- The young Cambodian social worker advocating for living wages and better working conditions among garment and sex workers. (The situation in Cambodia is so dire today that many who may have once opposed prostitution see the need for a union of sex workers, simply because until there are jobs, the sex trade is one of the few real employment options.)
These characters — along with others, that include brothel owners and their customers, economists and policy makers — provide the film's focus and give viewers an insider's understanding into how and why Cambodia has tumbled into an economic abyss.
In addition to these characters, Marketbound also examines Cambodia's recent history — a country engaged in a war of auto-genocide and its aftermath. The civil war and reign of Pol Pot, of course, did much to destroy Cambodia in the 1970s. However the history of its aftermath has been even more destructive. Following the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund presented a plan to pull Cambodia out of its economic abyss. They would do it through a set of stringent economic policies that included slashing school funding and privatizing previously government-run entities such as hospitals and public works programs. The goal was to get the country on its feet by providing economic incentives and cutting government graft while encouraging private foreign investment that would, argued the World Bank and IMF, jump start Cambodia's flagging economy.
Fifteen years later, Marketbound looks carefully at Cambodia, to see if this economic liberalization has worked for its people.
When these newly-privatized agencies began to charge for services like health care and education, millions of Cambodians already living at subsistence levels suddenly had no access to these services.
As a result, the cost of these services has skyrocketed, making medical treatment and education in Cambodia prohibitively expensive. These services have become accessible only to the wealthy or often to those who will sacrifice (usually) a daughter to the brothels or factories for the sake of the rest of the family. Today's young rural women are wage earners for the poorest of the poor, born into a world where they too will become "marketbound."
Marketbound tells this story in its entirety: the plight of the farming family, the life of a daughter displaced to Phnom Penh, and the fight of a social worker struggling to improve and build on an already-fragile economy.
What Viewers Will See
In watching this film, viewers will see poverty and its participants — international organizations, governments, foreign investors, and a few of the three billion people living in poverty around the world today.
There is a blunt paradox at work here. For the past decade casual observers often assume that because manufacturing jobs are moving overseas to nations such as Cambodia, the standard of living there must be going up. But recent events show these economic changes have wreaked havoc on this nation's underclass. Today, many question not just the effectiveness of the policies but the morality in continuing them.
Marketbound will follow the main characters and their stories in a verité form. Additionally, the film incorporates other interviews featuring a variety of characters, including factory workers, brothel owners, sex trade customers, and Cambodian policy makers.
These interviews, along with ones featuring noted economists on either side of the spectrum, Jagdish Bagwati and Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel Prize winner in Economics), will directly address the lives of characters featured in Marketbound. (A rough cut of Marketbound will be shown to them so they can comment directly and respond to characters in the film).
Through these personal stories where real lives are at stake, Marketbound will illuminate this complex story in human terms while offering a cogent economic analysis of where the country has been, where it is now, and what can be done to reverse this downward spiral.