Filmmaker Guy Jacobson and The K11 Project Battle Child Prostitution

On December 4, I interviewed Mr. Guy Jacobson by phone about the new film, Holly, the K11 Project, and the grassroots organization, The Redlight Children Campaign. 

While traveling through Cambodia in 2002, New York investment banker Guy Jacobson was approached for sex by about fifteen 5- to 7-year-old girls and witnessed first hand the realities of the sex slave industry. At a time when they should have been in school, kindergarten or first grade, learning the basics of language and math and fundamental social skills, these children were soliciting Mr. Jacobson for sex. One of the girls told him, in broken English, "I yum yum very good." The term yum yum means oral sex. After answering her with a no, she tells him, "I no money today, Mama-san boxing me." He gave the little girls a few dollars to take to the brothel owner so that she would not beat them and knew that he needed to act.

After a year and a half of research and being horrified by the realization of how widespread this problem is, he decided to utilize his production company, Priority Films, to make a film from the point of view of the victim. "Holly is really a compilation of a number of the children I met and spoke with in the brothels." From there he went back to the brothels of Cambodia and gathered information, talking to the workers and customers, under the guise of being a customer himself.

Mr. Jacobson, who served three years in the Israeli military, admits that the four to five weeks spent in the brothels was not the smartest of ideas. A year later, he started writing the script. Jacobson wanted to stay away from the typical Hollywood melodrama. He said that writing the script was difficult, he wanted to make sure that it wasn’t preachy, that the film wasn’t too explicit, but maintaining a feel that was gripping and compelling, that it pulled audiences in, while not exploiting the subject matter.

Article Author: Courtney Walker

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