“Uncle Mickey is the best person I’ve ever met,” we’re told by an enthusiastic girl in a new trailer for “The Wrong Light.” Uncle Mickey — AKA Mickey Choothesa — heads a Northern Thailand-based anti-trafficking NGO that offers shelter and education to young girls rescued from brothels. It’s no surprise that the girls he helps are grateful for his kindness and support. “Every girl that’s living here has been through a lot. Sold by their parents and abandoned,” he explains in the spot. But the trailer heads in a totally unexpected direction when filmmakers Josie Swantek and Dave Adams begin to suspect that Choothesa is far from the selfless hero he seems.
“Spending more time with the family themselves it was hard to imagine them selling their children,” Swantek says on-camera. The directors explain, “We started questioning everything Mickey ever told us.” Choothesa, it seems, is a fraud. Check out the trailer to see his lies unravel.
Produced by Shine Global, “The Wrong Light” opens in NY July 14 and LA July 21.