Sound of Freedom actor Eduardo Verástegui addresses CBC criticism of his movie
Episode Stats
Words per minute
182.91737
Summary
Actor Pedro Pascal joins me to talk about his new film, Son of Freedom, and his fight against child sex trafficking. We talk about how important it is for parents to know about this issue, and how they can do their part to protect their children.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Mr. Verastegui, what brings you out to the Make Europe Great Again conference?
00:00:03.600
Well, you know, I'm traveling around the world, you know, talking about this issue,
00:00:08.560
this terrible reality, which is child trafficking,
00:00:11.160
which is my number one mission in life is to end child trafficking.
00:00:13.860
I commit with my life, I give my life to end this.
00:00:18.920
And it started nine years ago with the movie Son of Freedom.
00:00:24.060
And now that the movie's out all over the world,
00:00:26.720
I don't want to, you know, look the other way around and say,
00:00:32.900
well, I did the movie, the movie's out, I did my work, I'm going to find something else.
00:00:38.040
No, yes, I'm doing a lot of other things, but this is going to be forever.
00:00:41.680
I'm never going to give my back to the children of the world.
00:00:46.480
I follow this principle, which is a universal principle.
00:00:49.360
Your children are my children, and I give my life to protect them.
00:00:53.080
And I have not just to say it, I need to execute.
00:00:56.800
So what I do, I travel around the world, what they invite me.
00:00:58.960
So I got an invitation to come here and to talk about these agreements
00:01:03.420
that I'm signing with prime ministers, presidents, governors,
00:01:10.540
If you don't do something to leave a legacy, a permanent legacy behind,
00:01:18.320
and it was great, you know, you raise awareness, you open the eyes of this trolley.
00:01:29.860
We need to inspire every parent to take care of their children,
00:01:32.740
to pay attention to what they're doing, to what they're watching on social media,
00:01:36.260
because you, child, can be kidnapped in your own house,
00:01:40.060
watching the Internet, talking to strangers, to maybe another kid,
00:01:44.160
but maybe he's not a kid, maybe he's an adult, he's another kid.
00:01:46.900
Next thing you know, they're exchanging pictures.
00:01:49.740
Next thing you know, he's being threatened by the pedophile.
00:01:54.580
You know, if you tell your mother, I will kill your mother, I will kill you.
00:02:04.600
So I want parents to know that this is happening,
00:02:11.240
well, I don't want to know about this, this is too ugly.
00:02:17.240
You need to know because you have children and they are the target.
00:02:22.700
It's better for you to be scared and do something about it
00:02:33.780
something happens to your children and it's too late
00:02:41.480
Let's put pressure in government so they can do something about it.
00:02:44.080
Everybody should be doing something about it, you know?
00:02:48.380
on talking to potentially Canadian leaders on this issue?
00:02:52.460
but this issue happens quite a lot in our smaller rural communities.
00:02:55.580
Would you be interested in actually talking with Canadian leaders on this issue?
00:02:59.120
Canada is some of the top countries around the world.
00:03:02.160
The number one consumer of child sex in the world is the United States.
00:03:10.100
I just spoke to someone from Canada actually last night
00:03:12.380
and that person is going to connect me with other, you know,
00:03:20.100
business sector, media sector, political sector,
00:03:23.780
to do a private screenings for all these sectors in Canada in different cities
00:03:27.520
and then hopefully to sign an agreement with whoever wants to participate in the government
00:03:39.260
We all should be paying attention to this regardless of your belief system or whatever.
00:03:45.140
Children are children and we need to protect them, you know?
00:03:47.600
And I am planning already to come to Canada very soon to do something about it over there.
00:03:53.540
Your film, Sound of Freedom, was a success in Canada, of course,
00:03:56.380
but we had our state broadcaster journalists who review films,
00:04:03.280
and kind of diminishing the issue of child sex trafficking.
00:04:06.860
What do you say to people who try to write off your film
00:04:09.760
and diminish the issue that you're fighting for?
00:04:12.300
You know, some of them are pedophiles, some of them.
00:04:14.220
I'm not saying that that person is because I don't know.
00:04:19.840
and it happens to be that those who review the film in a very bad way,
00:04:27.060
turned out that they have never seen the movie.
00:04:31.660
So how can you destroy a movie that you haven't even seen it?
00:04:36.440
Hey, we're good for, like, artists' objectives.
00:04:38.600
You can say, I don't like the acting, I don't like this, it's too long for me.
00:04:45.980
like, this is not real, this is a conspiracy, ta-da-da-da-da-da-da,
00:04:51.980
It's like, who's going to be against a movement that is saving children?
00:04:55.960
And listen, we always send an invitation to left and right.
00:04:59.820
Unfortunately, sometimes a lot of people from the left, they don't respond.
00:05:03.420
Maybe there's a reason, because many of them, they are trying to legalize pedophilia.
00:05:12.640
So maybe this movie is like too much light in the darkness, that they get, you know, hurt.
00:05:20.340
This is, I mean, there's people who are trying to legalize pedophilia.
00:05:24.500
They already are taking the word pedophilia to replace by minor attraction.
00:05:30.160
And that's how they're going to keep going, keep moving.
00:05:32.240
And then what is gender ideology equals sexual abuse of children?
00:05:40.320
Because eventually, if you identify as a child, and now you want to play with another children,
00:05:48.180
so that's, they're very tricky, they're very smart, they're very sneaky, they're very evil, you know?
00:05:52.780
So I will always be with my eyes open if someone is trying to destroy this film because of,
00:05:59.260
not because of objective reasons, artistic reasons, but because of the movement.
00:06:10.260
I hope not, of course, because, you know, can you imagine being involved in this crime?
00:06:13.960
Eventually, you're going to go, you know, you're going to be gone soon because God's children are not for sale.
00:06:23.660
Eventually, I'm telling you, it's not good news for anyone that is hurting children.