Episode 747: City of Dreams

Published Sep 5, 2024, 11:33 PM

"City of Dreams" is a new film that tells the story of Jesús, a young Mexican boy whose dreams of becoming a soccer star are shattered when he's trafficked across the border and sold to a sweatshop in Los Angeles. The film, written and directed by Mohit Ramchandani and produced by Roadside Attractions, is a thrilling narrative that sheds light on the issue of child trafficking and forced labor in the United States. The film's executive producer, Vivek Ramaswamy and producer, Sean Wolfington, discuss the importance of the film and the need for action against child trafficking. The film is currently in theaters nationwide.

On this episode of news World. Inspired by true events, the new film City of Dreams follows Hazers, a young Mexican boy whose dreams of becoming a soccer star are shattered when he's trafficked across the border and sold to a sweatshop making fast fashion in downtown Los Angeles. He realizes that the only way to save himself and the others is to fight back, even if it cost him his life. City of Dreams is written and directed by Mahit Ramchandani and produced by Roadside Attractions and is in theaters nationwide. Now Here to discuss the new film, I am really pleased to welcome my guest, former candidate for president and a good friend, Vivek Ramaswami, who is an executive producer on City of Dreams, and Sean Wolfington, the producer today can Shawn welcome and thank you for joining me.

On newts World.

Thank you, thank you for having us.

Can you all briefly talk about why City of Dreams was made, why Mohid wanted to tell this story.

I'd be glad to kick off from my perspective, and it's been an honor to work with Moat and Sean and the team here. My parents came to this country from halfway around the world, from India as legal immigrants to pursue the American dream. They came from a country where child slavery and forced child labor and child trafficking was not unheard of. It was part of sadly a norm in the nineteen seventies, nineteen eighties, nineteen nineties in places like India and other parts of the Third World. And yet the reality is now, in the year twenty twenty four, that exists right here in the United States of America. And to me, as somebody who ran for US President, learned about this issue over the last year, I have to say I'm personally ashamed that I did not know more about this at the time I declared for my candidacy about how big of a problem this is not in some other hemisphere, in some other century, but right here at home, in our own homeland. And at the same time, this is not a partisan issue. And so much of your career, your illustrious career over decades, but even my recent entry into politics is framed in the context of Republicans versus Democrats, or left versus right. This is one of those issues where if we can't agree on the importance of ending child trafficking and ending forced child labor in the United States of America, then we're really screwed as a country. But the truth of the matter is, I think most Americans do agree, and that's why when you know I got in touch with this group and was invited to become an executive producer, it was an easy answer for me after seeing the movie. It's not a documentary, it's not some sort of lecture of a movie. It's a thriller. I know I'm biased, but I think it's by far the most entertaining and engaging and thrilling movies of the year probably have been produced in a very long time. And I do think it's necessary to use the power of story and narrative, not just education through facts and statistics, to motivate people to act. And that's exactly what I believe we've done here.

Well.

Vic, the very fact, given everything you've done in business, everything you've done in politics, the very fact you would make this a major commitment, I think speaks a lot about how important City of Dreams is. And Sean, you'd also produce the Sound of Freedom, which also dealt with child sex trafficking. What drew you to want to produce City of Dreams, Well.

You know, both films talk about the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. Right now, it's to one hundred and fifty million dollar industry. It is quadruple since two thousand and eight. I wasn't even aware it was happening. But when I did become aware, how could I turn my back on that ugly reality? And so the beauty of movies is that they can move people, you know, in a better direction. So we wanted to make a movie that, yes, was entertaining and impactful, and like Vivec said, it is a heroic thriller.

It will keep you on the edge of your seat.

So if you just want to be entertained, it is definitely a popcorn movie, but it also has the power to change and save people's lives. And I just don't see any thing that's more important use of my time, you know.

And it was true with Center Freedom.

Thanks to that movie, we've got twenty new laws around the world protecting children. We've got tens of thousands of children that we know are liberated because people saw the movie took action and it's our hope a City of Dreams. The same thing happens when people see this film and see how inspiring this young boy's story is, how courageous he is against all odds to fight back against his captors.

Hopefully that will inspire others.

You and all of us to join that fight for the freedom of these twelve million children who are victims of modern day slavery today.

It's doubly interesting to maybe because, as you know, because you lived it, the Sound of Freedom had a long process of finally breaking through and getting out to the public, and then it took off and it became really an extraordinarily important film. Do you think that City of Dreams may have a similar pattern of really breaking through and help change opinion?

Well, you know it already has.

I mean, what's really humbling for us is that you've got world leaders, first of all, like Vivek, like Tony Robbins, like Sylvester Stillaw, like Mike Tyson, Mira Sorvina, who was involved in Center Freedom also an executive producer of City of Dreams.

You've got an army of leaders.

Who are lending their voice to these twelve million children who don't have it, and that's already had an impact.

It helped raise awareness.

But certainly, for sure the second weekend, the third weekend of Center Freedom was bigger than the first, and we hope and expect City of Dreams will be the same.

This film is a movie, but at the same time it's almost a documentary. Can you just share with us the scale of modern slavery around the world. I think it's breathtaking and one of the great tragedies of our time.

Yeah, there's twelve million people living in slavery around the world. And I know that's a surprise to many people who might be listening to this conversation. Nude is we thought slavery was abolished in the United States in the eighteen sixties. Well, I think one of the things in realities we wake up to and this is a consequence of failed southern border policies, no doubt about it. There's no way to talk around that issue. This is a direct consequence of the travesty of the US southern border that there are now children living in slavery in the United States of America. When I say slavery, you'll see it when you watch this movie. I mean conditions that shock the conscience somebody who has beaten, physically tortured, held beyond their will, recaptured even upon escaping. These are the kinds of stories that you would imagine existing in some other century, in some other hemisphere, but not right here in modern twenty first century America. That being said, twelve million is a statistic, but I think that statistics don't move people in the way that a movie does. I think one of the beauties of this film Newt is it exposes a reality but without being a documentary. Right. It takes this per certain kind of person and a certain type of patience to say I'm going to dedicate part of my evening to learn about an issue that I didn't know about. I'm going to watch a documentary. It's another to say that, you know what, I'm going to watch a thriller and probably the most thrilling movie I've seen in a year. And this movie actually is the latter that accomplishes the goals of an activist campaign that otherwise probably couldn't reach the number of people were going to reach that we already are reaching through a film that' says compelling and entertaining and keeps you at the edge of your seat. I think very few people are going to make it to the end of this movie without being in tears for just this young boy's story alone. And then you take a step back after the movie and reflect on the fact that Hezus's story was not just some anomaly. It's a more normalized story in America. Probably a lot of people who listen to folks like you and me may have similar persuasions right of center or independent minded folks. But I almost encourage you, if you haven't watched a movie with the left of center friend or family member in a long time, make this the one that you actually do, because you'll find common cause at the end of it and at the same time find a way to be brought together ahead of what is no doubt we're in a divisive moment in our country, polarized election. It's one way to maybe find a sanctuary on an issue that's important, that relates to the border, that relates to clear and present issues for us, but at the same time can bring you together with friends and family members that you might not otherwise want to talk politics or watch the presidential debate with. Watch this movie instead. And I think this is a great week to do it. As we mentioned before, Sean mentioned this weekend one was Labor Day weekend. It was in honor of child forced labor that we picked Labor Day as the launch weekend. But having a blockbuster Labor Day weekend out at a gate, we now want to actually make sure that the second and third week, as you saw with movies like Sound of Freedom, really bring this into the public consciousness at an even bigger scale. And I think people who are head of the curve can help start that conversation. So this is a great week to do it. And you know, as much as I actually really did love the Sound of Freedom, I thought it was an excellent movie, and kudos to Sean and everyone else who was involved in that, I just think as a film this exceeds even the high bar set by Sound of Freedom by quite a bit in terms of its capacity to draw people in and the pace by which the movie moves. And so I think it's a great opportunity this week, in the second week, to hit this out of the park.

I remember when Speaker McCarthy invited close to me to come to the Capitol and you showed the Sound of Freedom to a lot of Congressmen, and I think it had a real impact. Have you had an opportunity to take City of Dreams to Capitol Hill and to make an opportunity for elected members to see firsthand how big of an issue that should be and how much attention they should pay to it.

Great question. We did have a screening schedule for September ninth. Unfortunately, the organization Hope on the Hill that coordinated it, the founder unfortunately perish in a plane accident. Nathan Kessler, a beautiful human being, dedicated his life to bring a Hope to the Hill.

So we're rescheduling that.

BEVEC is helping us coordinate a date that fits everyone's schedule, but we would like to.

Get it in front of wallmakers because it's the.

One issue where Democrats and Republicans can agree. It's not left, it's not right, it's right in the center of what matters to every decent human, which is protecting the innocence of our kids. And it's our hope that yes, we leverage policy, but in this day and age, politics to vibes and art unites, and that's the power of this film is that everyone can agree that whether it's a child of a democratic Republican, all children should be protected from this unthinkable horror.

When you research how.

Legal slavery ended in America, there are clues for what we can do to prevent and protect and save children today. According to a lot of historians, it wasn't Lincoln necessarily who was the primary driver of.

The Civil War.

Lincoln himself gave credit to Tarad P. Tristowe, who wrote a book called Uncle Tom's Cabin, which exposed the horrors of legal slavery in that era. Millions read it, they rose up, and they demanded change.

For their politicians.

And it's our hope to do the same with City of Dreams, so that people can get these statistics out of their head and into their heart. Because when you don't see it, you don't feel it. When you don't feel it, people don't act. But when people leave the theater after seeing this movie, you know they're on fire. They want to do whatever they can do. They may not be a right so they're not going to write Uncle Tom's Cabin. They may not have a show like You Knew It or platform.

Like you Viveca.

Everybody can do something, and it's our hope that they can go to cityodreamsmovie dot com. We've created a battle plan for anyone who wants to join this fight, ten practical steps they can take to help raise awareness about this critical cause.

And also we partnered with A twenty one.

They're one of the largest anti trafficking organizations.

In the world.

They've prepared a resource section to help families protect themselves but also look out for children that don't have families to look out for them.

It's staggering how big an industry it is and how many human beings have their lives dramatically crippled by this experience. The impact of fiction with Harriet Beecher Snow Who's Uncle Tom's Cabin, became the second most widely read book in the Nited States after the Bible. When Lincoln met her, he said, you're the little lady that started the Civil War. It became translated into a play. It's sort of made vivid for the North just how bad slavery was and it played a major role. And I think in that sense, City of Dreams is sort of a twenty first century version of that kind of novel. What do you think of the three or four major things that should be done to stop human trafficking.

So look, I think that there's the supply and there's the demand. So as a business guy, I look at both of them. On the supply side, Fixing the crisis at the southern border is the number one and simplest thing that we can do. One of the things that we often see in the debate about the border is that we often frame it and discuss it for good reasons. Right, looking at this through the lens of the American citizens who are already here, and how many Americans who live in the United States or citizens of this country are harmed by the border crisis for people who illegally cross the border. But what this movie does, and this issue of human trafficking, as you study it, what it does is it shows you that it's not just cruel to many of the people who already here, it is in many cases cruel to the people who are being tried affect across the border as well. It's not compassion to those people. That is cruelty. And it is really the cartels that are the ultimate beneficiaries of it. So what does that mean. It means completing the southern border wall, It means putting aquatic barriers in the Rio Grande, it means actually even using our own national guard and military resources to have a secure border to a country that is compassionate not just to the citizens here, but to the people who are exploited across that border. And I think that's on the supply side, an easy way to deal with this and score a big win. The hard reality, though, is there's a demand side to this issue as well. Whether you're thinking about the issue of sex slavery like you saw explored in movies like The Sound of Freedom, or you see the broader issue of forced labor at issue here in City of Dreams, this is something that needs to be addressed right here at home as well. It is illegal to hire or forcibly higher underage workers into your workplace, and they house them under conditions that say what you will about free adults being free to decide. Children are not able to be forced and we should not allow them to be forced to be working under these conditions. And so in many cases there it's just enforcing the laws that are already on the books that are failed to being enforced today, I think in part owing to corruption, and the movie does a great job of this of delicately, but boldly and fearlessly putting a spotlight on some of those nodes of corruption that account for how those laws aren't exactly being enforced well today. So I'd say addressed the supply side, we could do that relatively immediately. All it does is take the will of the politicians we're in charge. And then on the demand side, I think that's actually going to be driven by bottom up awareness. I don't think people at the state level or at the federal level are going to be able to get away with this anymore if we have a Hereet Beecher Stowe moment to fight this new form of slavery in America. And we often use the expression, I think it's true politics is downstream of culture. But even when you talk about showing this movie in Washington, DC, that's going to happen at some point this fall. But in some ways it's better for that to happen and after there's a bottom up cultural uprising and a cultural call to action from people who are just as everyday citizens moved in their hearts by seeing this movie in the movie theater and beginning to talk about in a bottom up way. That's actually what drives the kind of political and policy change we need in the country. Rarely is it top down. The way we're going to drive change on this issue included is bottom up, and that's why I think it'll be helpful for everyone to see this movie.

What sort of pushback have you gotten so far from people who say, Oh, it's not really true, or it's exaggerated, or it's not that big an issue. I mean, do you get much pushback?

I'll jump here quick.

You know, a Sound of Freedom, an investigative reporter did research about the first article that claim that Sound of Freedom was a conspiracy and that was exaggerating the facts, and trafficking wasn't that.

Big of a deal, and claims of QAnon and all sorts of craziness.

It turns out that that writer is a pedophile activist who's been trying to promote pedophilia, normalized pedophilia, and a concept called maps, which is minor attractive persons.

Unbelievable.

But what happened with Center Freedom is same thing happening in State of Dreams. The mainstream media just didn't cover the movie, you know, outside of some conservative media and Hispanic media did because Latino children are the biggest victims of child trafficking in America, and one of the biggest challenges we've had is not the support from leaders. Because we've got celebrities and influencers that in aggregate reach over three hundred million consumers. The reports that we're getting this week from different celebrities is that what they're posting online to help raise awareness about this plague in America are not reaching their followers.

You know, to give you an idea, one of.

The celebrities posts only reached one percent of the followers that one of our average posts in the last twenty posts reached one percent, So that means, you know, one hundred times more exposure for any content that is it part of the biggest anti trafficking campaign in the world right now. Two other celebrities had only twelve percent and thirteen percent of the exposure compared to the previous twenty posts. So I think that the challenge here is that Instagram and Facebook were thrown by mena They've got algorithms.

That are designed to protect children from child trafficking.

Ever since the article from the Wall Street Journal came out that highlighted the fact that they were connecting more children with pedophiles than anyone now being from technology. I chalk that up to the fact that they're the most scaled platform, right, so obviously they're going to have the most of anything. So I think they're now trying to combat that, but inadvertently they're now censoring, indirectly the voice of a lot of celebrities who are trying to fight for these innocent kids.

So it's my hope if there's anyone watching the show that works with.

Meta, that they will quickly speak with their teams and do the opposite and amplify the voices of these leaders who are lending their voice to the twelve million children who don't have one today.

I've never quite thought about your point that if you build algorithms to protect children from certain things, the key code words could easily un block the positive message because the algorithm's just playing off the words, it's not playing off the intent.

And there's a lot of people.

On the Internet claiming that, you know, Instagram and Mark Zuckerberg are.

Doing this intentionally. There's no way in the world.

These are people that are trying to combat traffic in the way we are. But they've got to update their algorithm to make sure that the voices that are fighting for these kids' freedom are amplified and not limited.

And one thing I would say is the way these algorithms work is, in some ways they're a product. They're very decentralized at times, their product of what they're fed, right, they what they're fed. The people that train them are not one person, but an entire culture of these institutions that have been built for a very long time. And I think that reveals an unfortunate fact about this. I think Sean is very intent on this. I'm very intent on this to make sure this movie is not partisan politicized. But I think that should also not stop us from speaking some hard truths here, which is that, for whatever reason it has become I think in some corners of the modern American left, a way of not denying the importance of this issue, but dismissing how big of a problem it actually is. One of the things that we would love, and would have loved and still would love is to have somebody, let's say, have run for Republican nomination for US president right came out among the top contenders last year. Was their counterpart, who has done something similar on the Democratic side to also come aboard and at least become an ambassador or an equivalent involved member in this film. And I can tell you it's not for life of trying. On my partner, Shan's part, I open up a little bit, lift the curtain, right. A lot of good people would say, well, absolutely, I'm all in on this issue, but when push came to show, there was a reluctance to actually get involved with it. And the reason why, I think is there is a hesitance to say anything that might have a negative read on the current border policies or the current policies that have led to this. And that's just a hard truth, right. You know Moe Ramchinani, who is the director of the movie, he and I have become great friends through this. He often jokes he's a Democrat, I'm a Republican, but we both agree on this issue. But for whatever reason, the political landscape has made this one of these relatively untouchable issues, one of these issues outside of the Overton Window, one of these issues you're not supposed to talk about in Polite Company. And I think that's one of the things this movie will do, it's already doing, is it's going to mainstream the issue to say that now you can't hide from this issue anymore of child trafficking in the United States. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. But that's the first step, is you have to see it. And putting it in a visual format like a movie, as opposed to a textual statistic in a newspaper page, forces you to see it.

Right.

Once you see this movie, you really you're not going to forget some of the scenes in this movie. I think it's one of the movies that's going to stay with you for a long time to come. That's why I said, you know, invite your left leaning friends over because I think that helps take this outside of the bounds of the Overton window and say no, no, no, we're open to talking about this issue. We're not sleeping it under the rug anymore. And as you well know, I know you believe this too. That's how we save our country, all of us starting to speak openly again in a way that's unconstrained and without fear. And I hope that's what this does on the issue of child trafficking.

We sent a direct invitation to every living president, President Carter, President Clinton, Obama, Biden and Trump. We did that set of Freedom, and we also did it with City of Dreams. Trump took us up on the invitation. We screened it for him at his country club. Leaders and this invitation still is out there for every leader in the.

Senate, every governor.

We would like to contribute and donate as screening so that you can screen this film for the leaders that you serve in your community and rally the supports we can actually enact some change to protect and save these innocent kids.

Ken churches and other institutions find a way to screen this and if so, who would they contact.

If you go to cityodreamsmovie dot com, people can sign up to host a private screening and very easy, within one minute, they can fill out a form and most of the work will be done for them. All they have to do is pay for the seats. It's as little as five hundred dollars depending on how big the theater is, and the theater chains will do the rest. In addition, they can, if they want, they can buy tickets on City of Dreams movie.

And there's also a battle plan as I had mentioned.

If they want, they can take up to ten different actions to raise awareness about the movie and it's mission to combat chand trafficking.

Are there any specific anti traffic organizations that you encountered while making the film that you would recommend for people to contact if they want to become active.

Well, you know A twenty one and we've worked with a lot of anti trafficking organizations. We offered to donate free private screenings for all of them for their own employees, the survivors they serve.

And their donors as a fundraiser.

But A twenty one is an international anti trafficking organization has done an incredible job serving the community, helping survivors, but also raising awareness and working with other organizations. And they've actually built out a whole resource section on cityofjamesmovie dot com and there's a link to their website where there's additional resources as well.

Sean, I have to ask you, given these two films and the impact you're personally having, do you have a big project coming up?

We've got a lot of projects.

You and your daughter were part of our first movie called Pella, so inadvertently you've been helping with movies for a long time. To thank you for that, and our next big project is called The Prince. It's a film written by David Mammott. It's starring Scott Hayes, who is in the Horizon Films with Kevin Costner, as well as Nicholas Cage, JK. Simmons, Gian Carlo Esposito. Another thriller, more of a fun, spirited kind of black comedy that is a parody about American politics and the media.

More to come on that. We're keeping it under the radar for now.

It's exciting and I'll reach out to you when it's finished so that we can do a screening for you and your family.

We want to have you back when you launch it. And of course, and de Vic, I don't want to in any way take you away from the campaign. Trill. I watch you on TV regularly and I realize how much you're doing and this is such an extraordinarily important election. But at the same time, I know you're so creative. Do you have any particular projects you'd like to share with us?

Well, I do have a book coming out the latter part of Thember. It's called Truths the Future of America First, and one of the issues I do address in the book actually overlaps with the theme of the movie, which is the truth that an open border is not a border. It's one of ten hard truths that I explore in this book. And you know, I think one of the things, you know, just wearing my different hat right now is as conservatives, I think the way we're going to win for the country, not just win an election, but win for the country isn't just by identifying what we're against. But the question is what do we actually stand for? And the premise of this book is we stand for truth. And so that book comes out on the week of September twenty third, and people hopefully are able to open their eyes to some hard truths that are uncomfortable at times to confront. But that's my next major project after this movie, is the release of that book later this month.

I'm going to take advantage of those opportunities to go ahead and tell you we will contact your public system once the book comes out. I'd love to have you as our guests for a podcast about your new book.

I'll get you an advanced copy too, newt and people can need a pre order it now as well. But I'm looking forward to sharing those ideas. So let's do it great well.

Vivek and Sean. I want to thank you for joining me. This has been a great conversation. Your film City of Dreams is stunning. It's in theaters everywhere right now. Our listeners can go to cityofdreamsmovie dot com to find out more details. And I just want to thank both of you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join me on Newtsworld.

Thank you, Thank you, dude.

Thank you to my guests Vivek Ramaswami and Sean Woffington. You can get a link to buy tickets to the new film City of Dreams on our show page at nutsworld dot com. Newtsworld is produced by Ginger three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guernsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team at Gingrich three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of newts World can sign up for my three freeweekly columns at gingrich three sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm NEWT Gingrich.

This is Newtsworld.

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