Our production moved south for 6 days of shooting.
Pattaya, is a major hub for sex tourism, and you can’t really believe it until you see it. One of our friends who runs an aftercare centre that helps young women leave prostitution, recently walked through the district where we are filming to count how many bars exist.
Over the last decade of work helping young women leave the sex trade, receive counselling and find careers that match their dreams, our friend told us she has not met one woman in all her years of experience who has ever wanted to sell her body.
She counted almost 2000 bars in this one area of Pattaya alone, with on average 30 girls working a bar. Do that math. Sobering, right?
In an earlier post you may remember seeing a photo we sent along of the prevailing attitude here. A large sign on Walking Street, the area with the bars for sex tourists reads, “Good guys go to heaven; Bad guys go to Pattaya.”
Photo: The SHANFilm crew pictured in Pattaya, Thailand. The team filmed among throngs of people to get exterior shots of the go-go bar that is the set for The Pearl, the centre of the investigation in the film.
As we entered this area to prepare to film in a real bar frequented by men around the world to purchase girls for an evening, it wasn’t lost on us that it was the beginning of the UNiTE campaign– the United Nation’s annual campaign to unite people across the world to put an end to violence against women.
Photo: Actresses Teresa Ting and Vanessa Toh UNiTE against violence against women on the set of SHANFilm for the UN’s #orangetheworld campaign.
We hope to capture the reality of this very gritty and dark world where girls like NUMBER 18 work night after night.