They are among the most amazing women I’ve ever met onscreen: Saraswoti and Sheetal, the protagonists of 2018’s incredibly inspiring documentary Even When I Fall. Both were trafficked from Nepal to India as small children and sold into slavery — slavery! — in circuses there, and they met in 2010 at a refuge back in Nepal for rescued circus slaves. They’ve used the skills they developed during their bondage to establish the ethical Circus Kathmandu. (It’s more Cirque du Soleil than Ringling Bros.: acrobats and dancing, not lion tamers and clowns.)
Directors Kate McLarnon and Sky Neal do not linger on the explicit horrors of the slave circuses, though the hints we get are more than sufficient to appreciate dehumanization the women have bounced back from. Part of both my Movies for the Resistance series and my Directed by Women series, this is a film of great grace, dignity, beauty, and power as it portrays the women’s work today, transforming their terrible early experiences into advocacy for former circus slaves and battling the stigma that attaches to trafficked girls and women. They are absolutely vital role models for everyone determined to build a better world than the one we have now.
US: stream on Kanopy; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
See Even When I Fall at Letterboxd for more viewing options.
