MIGRANT DREAMS: Film as a tool for fighting back

MIGRANT DREAMS: Film as a tool for fighting back

Lisa Valencia-Svensson

By Mila Astorga-Garcia

Migrant Dreams, a documentary film about migrant workers by multiple award-winning director Min Sook Lee and Emmy-award producer Filipino-Canadian Lisa Valencia-Svensson, which was one of the entries to the 2016 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival in Toronto, is creating quite a stir in media circles, earning rave reviews, and winning a distinguished place in the Hot Docs Top Ten Audience Favourites List.

The film’s official website describes it as “a powerful feature documentary …(about) the undertold story of migrant agricultural workers struggling against Canada’s Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) that treats foreign workers as modern-day indentured labourers.”

It further states: “Migrant Dreams exposes the underbelly of the Canadian government labour program that has built a system designed to empower brokers and growers to exploit, dehumanize and deceive migrant workers who have virtually no access to support or information in their own language. Workers willing to pay exorbitant fees to work at minimum wage jobs packing the fruits and vegetables we eat in our homes. Migrant workers who deserve basic labour and human rights. Canada it seems, has failed them.”

The film, however goes beyond a description of the workers’ plight. At the outset, its promotional literature declares that it is about “A group of migrant women farm workers (who) dare to resist the systemic oppression and exploitation from their brokers, employers and Canadian government in small-town Ontario.”

Min Sook Lee

In one of her media interviews (by Victoria Hearn, CP, Metro News, May 6), director Lee revealed that when she was filming in Southern Ontario, where she spent time to observe and interview the Indonesian migrant women, she realized that she was documenting not just their plight but their brave fight against the oppressive conditions of their employment. She confided: “When I met the women workers, initially I thought I was just going to be spending the season chronicling the lives of migrant workers in Canada…. As I was filming the Indonesian women workers, I realized they were fighting back and I realized documentary is a tool to fighting back.”

The film’s world premiere and two further screenings at the Hot Docs festival went on rush and got standing ovations.

The film is considered relevant by its creators as its subject and message resonate with important issues affecting migrant workers, foremost of which is their precarious working conditions tied to their temporary status, which engender situations of abuse. It also shows why temporary migrant workers fight for permanent residence so they have the same worker’s rights as Canadians.

A post on the Migrant Dreams Facebook page articulates the relevance of the film, in light of the plight of temporary foreign workers impacted by the fire in Fort McMurray: “We are also thinking of the thousands of people currently affected by the wildfires in Fort McMurray, including migrant workers working in the area, whose status in Canada is suddenly precarious now that they have no jobs. Migrant worker organizations are calling on the federal government to make special allowances for these workers so that they can remain in the country rather than be forced to suddenly return home.”

The Philippine Reporter was able to catch up with film producer Valencia-Svensson just before press time for her thoughts about the celebrated film.

Valencia-Svensson reveals that the film resonates with the reality of many immigrant families like her. “The Filipino working abroad right now is a also a story of my family” she says, confiding that she has relatives who worked as temporary workers in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Dubai. “A cousin’s wife is a Toronto domestic worker,” she adds.

“The story of temporary foreign workers is a largely unreported story in Canada, and I want to help expose that there is a huge amount of exploitation and abuse going on. It’s about time people know that.

“People who see the film who don’t know what is going on will likely be horrified when they realize that temporary foreign workers do not have decent housing. They do not have the same rights as workers. They can’t vote, so politicians don’t listen to them. That’s why through film, we are telling their stories, and the more that their stories are heard, there is going to be a shift in perception so that everyone in this country becomes aware about their stories and that their stories count.”

Asked how she feels about the film’s success, Valencia-Svensson replied: “I feel really really good; it’s very fulfilling to help tell these stories with these realities.”
Migrant Dreams was also just shown at DOXA film festival in Vancouver, and Northwestfest in Edmonton. The team is now working on all upcoming distribution plans for the film. It will be broadcast on TVOntario in the fall.