APLE Hawaii Presents "Sex Worker Sinema"
at University of Hawaii, School of Architecture-Auditorium
Room 205- 7PM

plus Scarlot Harlot and Mariko Passion Live!

"Sex Worker Sinema," curated in conjunction with Hawaii's sex worker rights events, will include educational and historical videos which track the development of sex worker rights since the inception of the movement in the 70s. This collection of work addresses US policies on prostitution as well as the effect these policies have on sex workers around the world.

Hard Work with Margo St. James - Ginny Durrin (29 min. 1977) Wonderful energetic documentary about the beginnings of the modern day prostitutes’ rights movement with this profile of Margo St. James... features the first articulations of ‘whore feminism’ and special appearances by Lottie Da and many more.

Negotiating Sex Workers’ Rights: Calcutta - C.J. Roesler(12 min. 2003 USA)
A video montage based on footage acquired by Roesler at the Calcutta Sex Worker’s Conference in November 1997. The text is based on the Sex Worker’s Manifesto from the DMSC (Durbar Mahila Samanya Committee ) demanding decriminalization and the right to form a trade union.

Street Survivor – Director Lin Jingjie; Producer Yann Shan Tsai, Left Motion Filmmakers Collective (21 min. 2006 Taiwan) Beautifully filmed, Street Survivor is a precious portrait of a hooker and the cop who arrested her. If she needs to be working the streets in order to survive, does the cop have a choice of letting her be? Who is the oppressed in the scenario and who is to blame? The first-person voices of a policeman and a sex worker tell us how they try to survive this cruel game on the street. Music by Lin Giong. 

Taking the Pledge - Melissa Ditmore & Erin Siegel (Network of Sex Work Projects) (13 min. 2007) Documenting the impact of the Bush administration policy which requires international health organizations to sign an oath against prostitution, basically agreeing not to support prostitutes rights.

Mariko Passion, Educated Whore and Urban Geisha
Mariko Passion is a performance artist activist educator and whore revolutionary. She sings, rhymes her experiences over beats, produces and edits videos, educates the community and also currently works as a sex worker in Los Angeles. Ethnically half Japanese, Mariko follows the tradition of being well versed in conversation, fine art, music and singing and story telling like the geisha of traditional Japan. Being a call girl in the big wild city of LA, can be a little different than a Kyoto tea house or even Tokyo. She began doing outcall stripping work four years ago and then "turned out" as a full service prostitute two years ago. She has been recording her analysis and adventures on her mini DV camera for the last 2 years and has been exhibiting her art in galleries and speaking at colleges around the U.S. for the last two years through her invovlement with Sex Workers Outreach Project-LA. Her short videos are seen as chronological episodes of her journey through her sex work and through her life and will be compiled into a full length feature segment on a mainstream cable network in the future.

 

Carol Leigh AKA Scarlot Harlot
Carol Leigh has been a sex worker and activist since the late seventies. A poet and performance artist, she coined the term "sex worker" in 1979. Leigh is webmistress at Prostitutes Education Network http://www.bayswan.org/penet.html. Leigh volunteered at the HIV Prevention Project (needle exchange) in the women's site food program for several years. As a founding member of ACT UP, she organized a campaign against mandatory HIV testing of prostitutes. She was lead writer and organizer of the San Francisco Board of Supervisor's Task Force on Prostitution representing San Francisco's Commission on the Status of Women. She is a founding member of SWOP, BAYSWAN and a long time COYOTE member. Leigh currently directs and curates the San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival (sexworkerfest.com). The "Scarlot Harlot Video Festival" podcast is available on iTunes. Leigh recently received the Creative Work Fund Award for her video documentation. Since the late seventies, Leigh has written and performed political satire as "Scarlot Harlot," work based on her experience as a prostitute and has toured internationally and in the US with the Sex Worker Art Show Tour. She has produced work in a variety of genres on women's issues including her video, Blind Eye To Justice: HIV+ Women Incarcerated in California was narrated by Angela Davis. Leigh's book, "Unrepentant Whore: The Collected Work of Scarlot Harlot" was published by Last Gasp in 2003.

"Sex Worker Sinema" curated by The Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival

The Sex Worker Festival was established in 1999 to provide a forum for the accomplishments of sex worker artists and filmmakers and to show work about sex workers and sex industries from around the world. The Sex Worker Festival provides an opportunity to recognize the work and lives of prostitutes, dancers, porn performers and other sex workers who have historically been a dynamic part of arts communities. The Sex Worker Festival promotes sex worker rights, community building, outreach, as well as educational and cultural empowerment.

Over the past decade, sex worker art and culture festivals have sprouted up around the globe from Calcutta to Israel to Taiwan to Montreal, from Portland to Cleveland and Arizona. Sex worker film, art and performance events span the globe, chronicling contemporary sexual politics and mores with a vision that penetrates our hypocrisies.

The evening will include short live performances by artists Mariko Passion and Scarlot Harlot.