H.O.T. and the darker sides of globalisation

30.03.2009 \ I don't know, I just go and see, Journal

H.O.T. recounts one of the darker sides of globalisation, the international illegal organ trade, an uncomfortable truth that is both widespread and flourishing. H.O.T underscores one of the biggest disparities of the 21st century, where one part of the world becomes ever richer while sterile, and the other poorer but fertile.

The protagonists of the documentary are men, women and children, of different cultures, religions and social statuses, who, with their individual stories of desperation, are somehow interlinked with the larger planetary events. On one side the necessity to survive poverty at any price, on the other, those willing to pay whatever price, to survive. Unfortunately for many, that amount of money that promises a better life, often represents a momentary and fleeting illusion… life does not improve and instead plunges those individuals further into desperation.

H.O.T. recounts of an invisible reality, which enriches some people, saves others, and renders a mere few happy.

The documentary follows the true stories of those who have been pushed to taking this step. Parallel lives which have as common denominator poverty, the various factors played by; the black market, corrupt doctors, patients who won’t stop at anything when their life is in jeopardy, their return home, the secret they keep, the return home of the donators, the use they make of the money earned, and how their poor and small community reacts to this phenomenon.

H.O.T. begins its journey in India and Nepal, more specifically in the village of Terai, where the decision of a young Nepalese kid, to sell one of his kidneys, leads us to meet the mediator and buyer in Katmandu, the conniving Indian doctors, and allows us to see how easily documents and certificates are falsified.

The same method of unearthing the truth, takes us to opposite corners of the earth, where the illegal trafficking of human organs is often even more brutal. Touching base in Brazil, Bolivia, Moldavia, the Philippines, Turkey, South Africa, Israel etc… the documentary reports true facts, but also looks further into the driving factors that fuel this phenomenon, and the history of world poverty.

Alessandro Gilioli’s blog

H.O.T. website

Photo by Laura Landi & Claudio Maria Lerario