Heather White is a first-time documentary director. She is the founder and former Executive Director of Verité, an award-winning non-profit organization recognized for its groundbreaking leadership in the areas of global supply chain monitoring and factory social audits.

“Complicit” will premiere at the 2017 Human Rights Watch Film Festival today, June 12. The film was co-directed by Lynn Zhang.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

HW: “Complicit” follows Yi YeTing, a migrant worker struggling with occupational leukemia who’s trying to obtain compensation from his employer.

Wanting to help others, he begins working for a non-profit that assists workers with occupational illness and injuries. He discovers there are dozens of workers in his local area who were poisoned while making smartphones, constituting a leukemia cluster in the neighborhood surrounding Appleʼs main supplier, Foxconn. Yiʼs research leads him to several workers and their families who are trying to survive while burdened with unaffordable health care costs.

Powerful forces are unleashed as Yi confronts local factories, putting his own safety at risk.

We spent three years off and on in China filming family reunions, harvests and meals, as well as parents’ demonstrations against the factories that sickened their children.

We witnessed our characters’ pain, shared their laughter and tears, and admired their faith and courage. When one of our main characters committed suicide, we grieved with his parents. Those experiences motivated us to tell their stories, to put a human face behind the high tech devices so embedded in our lives, to push for a change in the behavior of global brands, and to question corporations’ claims of social and environmental responsibility in the face of evidence to the contrary.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

HW: My journey to “Complicit” began over ten years ago. I read an article in a Chinese newspaper about newly created rehabilitation clinics to address the growing problem of poisoned teenagers in factories producing for global companies. Tracking the subject for several years, I finally obtained funding in 2012 to begin research for a book.

We discovered that the “disposable workforce” — workers discarded after becoming ill or maimed — is reaching epidemic proportions, afflicting over one million workers annually in China. All electronics brands have “codes of conduct” which state that they seek to uphold the highest standards of health and safety in their supplier factories. In reality, true monitoring by these foreign brands is nowhere to be found.

Lynn Zhang and I decided we needed to make a film to let the world know what’s happening in factories thousands of miles away. “Complicit” is a way to sound an alarm and hopefully bring about change.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

HW: I hope that after watching “Complicit,” viewers will feel a sense of increased connection to the workers that make the devices we can’t live without. They must understand that there are life-threatening risks associated with chemicals used during their production.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

HW: The film was shot below the Chinese government’s radar, and we avoided contact with the government throughout.

The footage has an edgy, underground quality that reflects the sensitive nature of the locations. We had to avoid hospital surveillance cameras. Characters couldn’t be seen speaking with foreign journalists for safety reasons. We interviewed patients in their recovery rooms, in rented hotel rooms, and in private homes.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.

HW: I begged and borrowed production funds for four years from everyone I know and strangers I’d never heard of.

I crowdfunded on Indiegogo and raised over $40,000. I wrote 35 grant proposals to documentary film funders and foundations. I was turned down by the majority of them who did not trust first-time filmmakers with their money. But, a few did say yes, and that got us to the finish line.

W&H: What does it mean for you to have your film play at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival?

HW: It is an honor to be recognized by The Human Rights Watch Film Festival for this film.

I’ve been a human rights advocate for 20 years, and being included in the festival is a wonderful endorsement of “Complicit” and its message: We who have the ability to speak on behalf of others should do what we can. Through strong filmmaking, we should make sacrifices when necessary to give a voice to the voiceless among us.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

HW: The best advice came from our Emmy and Academy-award winning editing team. Their experience and sense of storytelling was invaluable in making a film that has a strong narrative arc — especially given that we started with over 120 hours of disparate interviews, no script, and no clear story-line.

My advice is to work with the best editors you can afford!

The worst advice I received came from one of our producers. They suggested that we not complete the feature length documentary, but stop after our ten minute trailer. It received 1.2 million views, which persuaded Apple to ban benzene from a portion of their suppliers in 2014.

We now have a visually beautiful 90 minute film that has gotten excellent reviews and is being featured globally in prestigious film festivals.

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

HW: As a first-time filmmaker, I think the only advice that could be helpful has to do with the fundraising techniques I employed. They allowed us to reach the finish line in four years. “Complicit” was largely funded from grants and foundation donations.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

HW: Ava DuVernay’s “13th.” She’s raising awareness at an important time, focusing on some of the most compelling issues America is facing right now. The film is bleak, powerful, and unsparing in its critiques of American society.

We need more of these films. It’s important that we not look away when it becomes too painful.

W&H: There have been significant conversations over the last couple of years about increasing the amount of opportunities for women directors yet the numbers have not increased. Are you optimistic about the possibilities for change? Share any thoughts you might have on this topic.

HW: Women directors are working in an unsupportive industry; it often tells them their creative work is not of interest and generally withholds funding for female filmmaking endeavors.

I will be optimistic for change when female funders come together and become substantially more proactive by writing large checks for the films they care about getting made — and I mean checks the size that men write.

We cannot just wait for the industry to fundamentally change the way it does business.