Educational Media Reviews Online

Canadian filmmaker Vic Sarin travels around the world to explore colorism—the prejudice within races against people with darker skin colors.

Sarin recalls his childhood in India, where his mother emphasized the importance of lighter skin. His sense of having less value as a darker-skinned boy may have made him a workaholic as he strove to prove himself to other filmmakers, and ultimately had an impact on his own children as he was often an absent father.

Sarin interviews several individuals who have been impacted by the preference for lighter skin. A street sweeper in Brazil works harder than his peers but has created a niche for himself as a street performer, and values family and music over social acceptance. Filipina entrepreneur Elvie Pineda, threatened and horribly bullied as a child by other Filipina girls, dreamed of being white and today owns a multimillion dollar skin-lightening business; her Asian clients happily pay thousands for her treatments. A South African minister talks about her favored childhood in comparison to her darker-skinned sister, government-sponsored classification of children according to appearance, and her fury at the racism directed at her own dark-skinned children. An actress in India who prayed for lighter skin as child remains unmarried and a virgin in her 30’s; a one-legged man rejected an arranged marriage with her because of her darker skin.

Sarin also visits a Tanzanian school that has become a refuge for albino children who cannot live at home for fear of abduction and mutilation by witch doctors. Occult practitioners are patronized by government officials, religious leaders, and police, even though they use albinos’ limbs in their rituals. They believe it acceptable to mutilate or kill albinos because they are not human but “ghosts.”

Archival photos and film combine with Sarin’s interviews and beautifully shot scenes of contemporary life. Despite his subjects’ harrowing experiences, many believe the preference for lighter skin is less acute than in the past, and will diminish further over time. Sarin concludes that there is reason for optimism.

This film is highly recommended for its personal treatment of the topic, high production values, and global, multicultural scope.