In Bangladesh a prostitute normally wouldn't even undress for a man. He pays, she pulls up her sari, and he's done in 20 seconds.

Prostitution will always exist in every society, so I believe in a fair trade. Open the doors for women to earn their money without having pimps. The worst thing is to criminalize it, because then you open the doors for pimps, criminals, and trading.

On one hand, they [prostitutes] don't struggle because it's simply their life. In Mexico and elsewhere, once they get out of these places [brothels] they have a pretty square life.

I had to first convince them [prostitutes] that I wasn't a journalist who would yet again put out a notion about them they wouldn't necessarily care for or who would victimize them. You know, journalists come and go. If they come twice, it's a lot. But I come 10 times and hang out with them and share stuff. If you connect with someone just once, that's something. But if you can connect twice, that's something else.

If you connect with someone just once, that's something. But if you can connect twice, that's something else.

I think beauty is the splendor of truth, so if the people I portray think they're beautiful, they're beautiful. I don't make them that way.

La Zona is such a closed area, a dangerous, outlaw area. My time in the Zona was a time outside of society, almost out of the real world. And the girls there had such a sense of irony and sarcasm. They were also really interested in my film. They'd be like, "Thank God we live in Mexico, because our kind of prostitution has a heart. We wouldn't want to sit behind a glass cage or be sold by our own mothers. We have free will."