Kano: An American and His Harem

Power, poverty, and a harem in the Philippine tropics

Kano: An American and His Harem is a 2010 Philippine crime documentary that spent five years filming one of the most disturbing cases to emerge from a remote Philippine village: an American ex-soldier who built a harem, and the women whose lives were upended by it.

What the documentary is about

Victor Pearson, a Vietnam War veteran who settled in a poor rural community in the Philippines, invited hundreds of women to live with him over the years. Many, driven by poverty and a need to support their families, had little choice but to depend on him. Pearson was eventually charged with over 80 counts of rape and is now serving a life sentence. Director Monster Jimenez weaves together Pearson's own blunt testimony with the accounts of the women themselves, forming a portrait of a deeply dysfunctional extended family bound by co-dependency, power, and poverty.

Director

Monster Jimenez, a Philippine filmmaker and co-founder of the production company Arkeofilms, wrote and directed this as her feature debut. Her observational style keeps the camera close and searching, drawing out the candid voices of both Pearson and the women around him. Jimenez went on to produce further acclaimed Philippine films after this breakthrough work.

Awards and festivals

The film premiered at IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam), where it won the Award for Best First Appearance. It subsequently took Best Documentary at the Cinemanila International Film Festival and at the Gawad Urian Awards, the latter marking the first time that body had ever presented a documentary prize. The film also screened at the Krakow Film Festival and the Cinema Africa Asia and Latin America festival in Milan.

Setting and social context

Shot entirely in the Philippines, the film is grounded in the realities of rural poverty that made Pearson's predatory household possible. The women who came to him were, without exception, from humble backgrounds and sought work to support their families. The documentary situates Pearson's crimes within a broader social ecosystem of economic vulnerability and abuse.

Where to watch Kano: An American and His Harem online

You can watch this documentary on GuideDoc, the streaming platform dedicated to the world's best documentary films. Viewers who appreciate this film may also enjoy Alice Is Still Dead or Searching Heleny, two other investigative portrait documentaries available on GuideDoc.