SMALL VOICES is the intricately observed story of an idealistic teacher who challenges the cynicism and strictures of life in a poverty-stricken Philippine village by reaching her young students through music. Inspired by a true story, SMALL VOICES exposes audiences to a culture that has rarely been detailed on film.
"Only the rich can afford to dream. We can't."
These are the words of a child growing up in rural Malawig, the remote Philippine village where Melinda Santiago (Alessandra de Rossi) arrives to pursue her dream of educating deserving children. Melinda finds a community stripped of hope.
Malawig, like many struggling villages in the Philippine provinces, is fueled by government graft and run by cynical functionaries. Poverty has made the townspeople passive, yet some of the men join guerilla fighting units in the mountains — staking their lives on some kind of change.
Melinda has forsaken her family's desire to repatriate to the United States where life is easier. It is at Malawig Elementary School, where Melinda meets her lively pupils, a group of children eager to learn and grateful to find solace from the rice fields and farm labor.
Melinda is initially as tentative and humble as the villagers she meets, but she begins to witness practices that clash with her quiet integrity. Her poorly trained fellow schoolteachers routinely exploit their young charges for housecleaning; the school principal sells ice candy to the pupils to add to her personal coffers. Teacher salaries are delayed for months, requiring them to obtain salary advances from the village "Bombay" (Indian merchant) … with interest.
Rain streams through the jerry-rigged school roofs, drenching lesson plans, books and students' expectations and the children are relocated to makeshift classrooms.
Melinda continues to encounter barriers that affect her heartfelt attempts to teach. Parents order their boys to absent themselves during planting season. Mothers urge their daughters to give up schooling — girls are thought to be worthy only of marriage and for raising children. Melinda is heartbroken to learn that the reason two brothers — talented vocalists — are never at her chorus practices at the same time is because they can afford only one school uniform.
Despite the townspeople's enormous resistance, Melinda and her pupils enter a regional singing contest. It is Melinda's focus and conviction that keeps the group on course. The children's song kindles a small flame of hope, a daring to dream, and a willingness to fight for it.
Their small voices can finally be heard.
