Making "Anonymously Yours" Determined to give voice to the faceless women of the Burmese sex trade, filmmaker Gayle Ferraro and her associates devised a plan to achieve their goal undetected. Ferraro’s friend, a Burmese national whose social work at a local center targeted prostitutes, became the point of entry into the world the director hoped to document. Through her Burmese connection, Ferraro interviewed a dozen women in search of subjects for her film. Interviews halted suddenly when Ferraro’s contact, fearful of being followed, suspended production and all contact for two days.

In the end, however, the small pool of women whose erratic lives rarely coincided with the strict shooting schedule, proved insufficient to make the film. Out of necessity, Ferraro extended the casting call outside the safety of the center and into the distrustful streets of Myanmar. Posing as johns, a translator and a guide arranged meetings between the director and potential subjects. The unsuspecting prostitutes, surprised to find their true client to be an American woman, were proposed with Ferraro’s offer.

Securing the prostitutes, Ferraro learned, would be easy. Getting them to talk would be another matter. Without the bond of trust provided by the center, coercing the prostitutes to open up in front of a camera proved nearly impossible. Ferraro’s translator, however, would be the link the crew needed. Briefly incarcerated on trumped up conspiracy charges, while in jail the translator had been put in charge of more than 150 women, many of them prostitutes. In a lucky twist of fate, two prostitutes, solicited at random, remembered the trustworthy translator from jail and agreed to participate in the film.

With the principal characters in place, obtaining the documentary’s impromptu footage would be the next difficult and dangerous task. Hoping to capture scenes of prostitutes on the streets, the crew set up camp in a location where prostitutes would most likely congregate—outside of an army compound. Breaking Burmese law by smuggling their camera equipment into the country and filming without a permit, the outfit stationed themselves in the midst of the very officials they had strived to avoid.

Four adult bodies filming from one crammed economy–size car parked near the compound, the crew was only able to shoot for minutes at a time in the sweltering heat. Shutting down production twenty times in three hours to avoid detection and heat stroke, the scenes tested the crew’s stamina and resolve. Perseverance prevailed, however, and the Ferraro crew got their shots and their movie.