00:00This is Tim Wasper from Festtrek Concert TV.
00:28I'm here at the Regal Cinemas Union Square in New York City for Dances with Films New York.
00:33I think the best place to start is the genesis.
00:36But how your perspective helped influence how you approached it.
00:40Yeah, yeah.
00:42No, thank you.
00:44So, yeah, it is...
00:47Well, many times...
00:48Well, before I started, I really didn't know what I'm doing.
00:51You know, I saw this story and I was like,
00:56okay, I'm going to do a film.
00:59You know, my perspective, my perception was no problem.
01:03I walk in, make a movie in a year, I'm out.
01:07You know, make some money.
01:09And I was told, dude, this is not a documentary.
01:12And if you plan on doing a documentary, don't plan on getting rich.
01:15And you have to care about the people.
01:19And so that kind of was in the back drawer of my head, you know.
01:25And then when I started the film, all I knew was sex trafficking is an issue.
01:30And then everything started peeling off.
01:34And then I started seeing people.
01:35And by seeing the others that were in front of me,
01:40that had similar history stories to myself,
01:45suddenly I started accepting and looking at the stories of myself.
01:48and not being ashamed of being in that place and seeing this and connecting to these stories,
01:57which made me also accept the people in front of me.
02:01Because those are the people that usually, they'll be like air.
02:04Because they're in the quote-unquote margins, right?
02:12But how can I be in the, how can I climb the trunk if I don't understand how to water it?
02:18You know, how can I raise a tree?
02:24This area, it's the home of about 200 houses of prostitution.
02:29Are you with me?
02:30You're going to have to be strong for a minute.
02:31I run a ministry here in Tel Aviv.
02:34It's called The Door of Hope.
02:38For the women to have a safe shelter where they can come and eat and drink and change clothes.
02:43And the general message of this place is,
02:46I love you, but not what you do.
02:48And if you never change, I'll always love you.
02:52I used to be a prostitute for this country, and I'm bitter.
02:57You've got to quit being a victim.
02:59I used to be a prostitute.
03:00I used to be a prostitute.
03:01I used to be a prostitute.
03:02You've got to be a prostitute.
03:05I used to be a prostitute.
03:07I used to be a prostitute.
03:10And there she is, in fact, a harmful food.
03:14If I water the tree with some sweetness or stuff, then it'll grow, or it won't grow at all.
03:34So for me, it was a process.
03:37Just like Ohad says, it's a procedure, it's a process.
03:39And this is what it was for me.
03:41So the film happened as I grew to see them, to accept them, and in turn to accept me.
03:52And the big story is that only when I could heal from all these wounds, I could finish the film.
03:58Because it was 14 years of, I look at it like the dream of Joseph in the Torah.
04:05You know, the first, I remember when I moved with, at that time, my girlfriend, and she was also participating a lot in the film.
04:16I mean, again, there were so many people.
04:17So, we moved into an address that was 77.
04:22And because of the spiritual path that I choose and I love to be in, I see everything as a spiritual reason and cause for what is happening here.
04:33Everything that is happening here, even the meeting that was, everything as a spiritual reason and cause.
04:38Not religious, not religious, spiritual, as far as your journeys of soul.
04:44And so I was like, 77, does that mean that I'm going to have seven hard years and seven better years?
04:50Like, how is it going to work?
04:51What's it going to work?
04:51That's what happened.
04:52For the first seven years, six, seven years, I filmed.
04:55I was in production.
04:56I didn't ask questions.
04:58I went to wherever I felt, my gut felt, to shoot.
05:02I felt comfortable in Dave's shelter because it was a place that was not judgmental and it was accepting.
05:10It doesn't matter what you do.
05:11I love you.
05:12I was like, I really love being in the shelter.
05:15Also with Dave, because we were friends, you know.
05:19But it was.
05:19Is Dave really like that?
05:21Dave is like that.
05:22Dave is like that.
05:23I mean, the shelter doesn't exist anymore.
05:25Oh, yeah.
05:26Because, you know, he couldn't.
05:28You saw it in the film.
05:29But Dave is like that.
05:30Dave is that who he is.
05:33It's, you know.
05:34And I asked him in the beginning.
05:36It's not in the film.
05:37But I asked him in the beginning.
05:37Tell me, don't you think that you are trying to compensate for not saving your mom and being blamed by your mom for your.
05:45No, no, no, no.
05:45The letter he admitted says, yeah, in the way it is, actually.
05:48Because we went through a process of seeing it.
05:51So my perception shifted.
05:53Because when I perceive, then I believe.
05:56And so my perception shifted.
05:58And that opened my, widened my gamut.
06:06And by widening my gamut, I could include what I didn't understand in the beginning.
06:12But I could not widen my gamut in the beginning.
06:17Think about the CRT monitors in the 80s.
06:20256 colors.
06:22Today we have 4K colors.
06:236K, 8K, which can include the 256, but not vice versa.
06:29You know, so to go to widen, widen the gamut.
06:33We open up at 9.30 in the morning to the evening, providing a place for the women to have a safe shelter where they can come and eat and drink and change clothes.
06:48We try to make every possible effort to make it look like a home.
06:53You ready?
07:07You ready?
07:08Quick.
07:08Humanity is spirituality.
07:10True.
07:11You know?
07:12It's all tied.
07:13Everything is connected.
07:15You know, people try to segregate things.
07:18People try to look at something.
07:20You know what, like, for example, the judicial system here.
07:23I'm just giving you an example.
07:24I once was called into a jury duty.
07:27I could not stand it because they did not want to give me the entire story.
07:32They wanted me to make it.
07:34Yes, but everything is connected.
07:36No, no, no, no.
07:37I'm not doing it.
07:40I'm like, actually, they halted a try because I was the only one
07:44that was, I was like, no, I want to hear what happened.
07:48So they dismissed it, and then they had to do whatever I later.
07:51I was never called again.
07:52In my whole 33, 34 years that I'm in the States,
07:55I was only once on jury duty.
07:57I was for five, six, seven years.
08:00I was a month and a half in Boston, a month and a half in Tel Aviv.
08:03Like this, bum, bum, bum, bum, you know.
08:05What ended up happening in one, I can talk about a specific one time,
08:08towards the end of the film, Ohad and Dave were in the kitchen,
08:12and he's talking about his transformation.
08:15That conversation, which was four hours with my camera,
08:19when we were talking, that conversation actually cracked me open.
08:24And after that conversation, I could not move from the bed
08:27for two, three days physically.
08:30Right on that day, I already knew that he was touching,
08:35because my break, ironically, came through the sex, the ex-trafficker,
08:40because also my wound is a sexual wound and an abuse wound.
08:47That was my backstory, right?
08:49And so that hit me like a brick of walls.
08:52And so for two to three, now, during that happening,
08:57I knew that I'm going through something.
08:59I was happy about this.
09:01But I said, I was like, just go through it.
09:04You're going.
09:04That's how the entire film was.
09:06I was meeting people and experiencing things,
09:10like somebody, I almost got stabbed.
09:11But I said, look, it's fine.
09:15You're fine.
09:15Just trust.
09:17No fear.
09:18That's okay.
09:19I actually never, I didn't experience fear.
09:21Really?
09:22I was, I mean, it was my childhood neighborhood.
09:26I don't know.
09:27I don't know.
09:28I just, it was just flowing.
09:30Are you with me?
09:31You're going to have to be strong for a minute.
09:33Okay?
09:34It's not going to hurt much, but it's going to hurt a little bit.
09:52Hopefulness, hopefulness, yeah.
10:08Because I could see Anna, I could see other girls.
10:12Some of the girls, like Uda, the lady in the kitchen with the green,
10:16she's dead already.
10:17She was murdered.
10:18You know, because they are living day to day, night to night.
10:26You kill or be killed.
10:28Steal or be stolen from.
10:31Right?
10:32This is the life.
10:34This is the ongoing pattern.
10:37It doesn't give you the opportunity to think.
10:40It doesn't give you the opportunity to imagine.
10:43Transformations.
10:45They can't, because they're not, they can't.
10:47And that's part also of the system of how this world is and how it's being run.
10:53Not to allow people to think.
10:55Not to allow people to imagine.
10:57Because if they think and imagine, all what we know as governments, whatever,
11:03will crumble.
11:04Because we'll wake up and we'll see, oh, it's like in the movie, ants.
11:09One puny ant.
11:11You know, that's...
11:12It's a perfect reference.
11:15One puny ant will cause another ant to save, and then all those ten grasshoppers are down
11:21the drain.
11:21Hope is, hope is a word.
11:24You know, many people can't connect to it because they say, oh, hope is not enough.
11:26Well, hope is not enough because we have to continue the...
11:30Hope is the beginning.
11:32And it is a power because it's unbelievable the things that I've seen there and what I've
11:38experienced.
11:40So going through this, I knew that I'm going through shifts.
11:44I knew that I'm going through changes.
11:47That I'm talking with the ladies, being in the...
11:51I mean, it took me at least two, three months before I pressed the record on the camera.
11:56I told him.
11:57I was just...
11:57I learned it from an old...
12:00A legendary...
12:01Who was this legendary filmmaker?
12:03I was like...
12:03And I was like, hmm.
12:06Shelve it.
12:07Okay.
12:08And I just was with camera in my hand without operating it.
12:11Just walking, regular, talking to you like this without even operating it.
12:15Just like that.
12:17And then the camera becomes my extension.
12:19Psychologically.
12:21Okay.
12:27Are you taking care of her from here?
12:28Sir, thank you.
12:30Project.
12:30Did they ever ask me, are you filming?
12:56Was that ever a secondary thing?
13:01At first one, yes, but I would ask, first of all, because they knew that I'm there to
13:09make a film, but I wanted to create, first of all, a relationship, because it is, and
13:19that's what I learned also there, making the film, that it is all about relationship, not
13:24just the relationship between you and I, but my relationship to this relationship.
13:31How am I, like, if I come from a wound, and I would see my relationship with, let's say,
13:37Jana, oh, she just wants something from me, because I come from a place of fear and doubt,
13:44but if I come from a place where she wants connection, she wants to be seen, she wants
13:48to be held, she wants to be hugged, then my relationship to speaking with her is completely
13:54different.
13:55Many different things.
13:56I, you know, it's a whole different process.
14:02Oh, my God.
14:04You know, you're a little bit more.
14:04I, you know, looking at us, we have to go this way to help you.
14:07See you in an afternoon with the moment in the evening.
14:09And we've all got a little room for you and the thoughts in the room.
14:10I've got to go, say, go, say, go, say, go, say, go, say, go, say, go, say, go, say, go, say, go, say.
14:15Cool, say, go, say, go, say, go, say, go, say, go, say, go, say, go.
14:17I want to go, say, go.
14:21I want to go, say, go, say, go, say, go, say.
14:23You are a date.
14:24Now I'm going to go!
14:25What I want to talk about this year?
Comments