How
the crises of poverty, health care, environment and education affect
our children globally is of high importance to me. I was also
interested in countries that had recently suffered genocides and how
that had effected the subsequent generation of children. Cambodia
was on a short list, but Darfur was top of my list. Then fate
stepped in and planted me firmly on the path toward Cambodia.
Heather Connell was born and raised in
Massachusetts where she studied screenwriting and theatre arts at Salem
State College. In 2001, she relocated to Los Angeles and founded Displaced
Yankee Productions, an independent film company dedicated to using film as a
platform for raising social awareness and activism through entertainment.
After making two short films, Choosing Your Course (2002) and
Black and White (2004), Heather produced and directed her first feature
documentary, Small Voices: The Stories of Cambodia’s Children. In
Small Voices, the struggles of the street and garbage dump children
of Cambodia are examined through the personal stories of five children and
their journey toward education. As a result of her travels during the
production of Small Voices, Heather is in the process of building a
school for disabled children in Cambodia (see the Filmanthropy &
Cinemactivsm section below for more information).
Safe
Haven's mission is to provide a safe environment for handicap children in
Cambodia that allows them the opportunity to have access to the educational
and therapeutic resources that they need in order to help them reach their
full potential and personal independence. 
I
meet a lot of interesting people in LA, especially filmmakers, writers,
actors and aspiring artists of all types. I love hearing their stories
of inspiration, perspiration and the incredible amount of drive that
lives in all of us to accomplish our hopes and dreams.
Recently, I was lucky to meet one
woman, Heather Connell, who hails from a small town in Massachusetts,
not far from where I grew up myself. Heather moved to LA a few years
back in hopes of following one of her biggest passions: making
documentary films that deal with social issues. Heather, a go-getter to
say the least, wasted no time in putting her dreams into motion. In 2006
she began the initial stages of filming her very first documentary about
a subject she is very passionate about: the lives of children in third
world countries.
Please
take a moment and read the incredible story of how
"Small Voices: The Stories of
Cambodia's Children" was born, written by producer/director
Heather Connell (originally published in IT Magazine).
And if you're interested in purchasing
a copy of the DVD, being released this week, you can visit
http://www.smallvoicesmovie.com/.
Please support amazing lesbian artists!
"Small Voices: The Stories of
Cambodia's Children" by Heather Connell
It was well
over 100 degrees with 100% humidity the morning I arrived in Phnom Penh,
Cambodia in early March of 2006.
Despite the fact my
photographer Theresa and I had just spent a VERY long 24 hours of travel
time crammed into the most decrepit airplane ever -- I was feeling
energized. After a year's worth of pre-production, I was finally ready
to begin filming on my documentary
Small Voices: The Stories Of Cambodia's Children, an in depth
examination of the struggles of the street and garbage dump children who
live and work in a society that has largely forgotten them.
I
couldn't wait to get started -- as we took a taxi to our hotel on the
Tonle Sap River, I begin planning how I would find the street children.
Where did they hang out? What part of the city did they live and beg? I
decided I would spend that first day speaking to people and finding
where these children were so I could begin my work. First, I decided to
walk from our hotel to a nearby store to buy some bottled water.
In
those three dusty, grimy blocks, children and beggars besieged me. A
sickly woman with a naked baby held her hand out from where she sat
looking up at me from the curb. Poverty was everywhere and I'd only gone
three blocks. I realized I didn't have to search for what I was looking
for. All I had to do was open my eyes. I have since realized that this
is a concept we should all pay more attention too. If we all take the
time to just open our eyes to what is going on in the world around us
and in our own backyard, what a difference we could make.
