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Doc exposes feudal state behind "Price of Sugar" Shot over three years in the Dominican Republic and Europe, "The movie is about what happens when some of the richest people in this hemisphere exploit some of the poorest in this hemisphere, and what happens when one man tries to change that," said Haney, a producer with Uncommon Productions, an independent film production company based in Boston. That "one man" is Father Christopher Hartley, a Spanish priest and acolyte of Mother Theresa. "The Catholic Church is often a counterbalance to government in certain countries," Haney said. "There is a struggle to bring basic human rights and services, water and a consistent supply of food." Haney and his partners have a charity that delivers health care services to the Dominican Republic, which is how he learned about Father Hartley. The film company followed him into the sugar fields, where a wealthy Dominican family owned a sugar plantation worked by poor Haitians who were guarded, by day, by horsemen with machetes and guns and, by night, by barbed wire over the windows. "The company said the workers put them there to keep pigeons out, but the priest and people working there said the company put the barbed wire there to keep people from escaping, and Father Hartley said the same thing," Haney remembered. "The front pages of all newspapers in the country said that the family that we were filing about wanted to have the priest killed. He received death threats." Field workers put themselves in harm's way just to speak to the film crew. Haney wanted to be clear that he "loved the Dominican people." "There are numerous Dominicans who are, despite pressure and fear, standing up to defend Haitians, on their own nickel," he said. "The country is gloriously beautiful, even in the places where the people are poor. We tried to capture the flavor and tone and texture of this parish." He also wants to be clear that he recognizes the American market's complicity in the situation, and hopes the film can have a threefold result: "First, I hope the viewers can be inspired by the example of a person who looks at the poor folks, sees himself or herself and tries to help. Second of all, I'd hope people see this as a window into what capitalism will do when it's unchecked by reasonable government. Capitalism without any constraint ends up being what you see in this film: extraordinarily wealthy people having cushy relationships with the government and exploiting the dickens out of people. And third, these countries are getting preferential trade deals. … They sell sugar to America at premium prices. My own opinion as a citizen is that, as Americans, if we're going to pay them more, they should treat their workers in
a way that reflects our values." I |
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