In a mesmerizing confessional built from home video and animation, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio explores the mental prisons and personal trauma created by immigration policy.

In a mesmerizing confessional built from home video and animation, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio explores the mental prisons and personal trauma created by immigration policy.
2019-05-04
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Years living as an undocumented immigrant taught me not to believe in the American Dream.
0.0The diaspora of Filipinos around the globe is driven mostly by the economics of supply and demand. The yearning for something better, stability, and self-validation leads a handful of sojourners from the provinces of the Philippines into the arms of one of its former colonial masters — the USA. But what happens when they finally get what they want? And how? Filmmaker Dennis Empalmado explores the musings of Filipino expatriates and hopeful immigrants in "Naglalakbay" (Travelers).
0.0An absurd game of “finding happiness” is being played by local Latvian coyotes* and illegal immigrants on the Russian and the European Union border. It is a game with no winner – all participants are driven to play by the sense of despair. While one side leaves home and undertakes a perilous journey to the other side of the globe, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in a free country, the other side risks their freedom to earn a chance to stay right where they are, in their homeland. *coyote – someone who smuggles illegal immigrants
7.2Filmmaker Christopher Quinn observes the ordeal of three Sudanese refugees -- Jon Bul Dau, Daniel Abul Pach and Panther Bior -- as they try to come to terms with the horrors they experienced in their homeland, while adjusting to their new lives in the United States.
0.0A man recounts his life experiences from his youth in Türkiye, to his many years spent behind the counter at a small Fish & Chip shop in the UK.
0.0Tells the story of Larry and Trudie Long, a popular Asian American nightclub act of the '40s and '50s, told through the eyes of their daughter, actress Jodi Long.
7.4This documentary follows 8 teens and pre-teens as they work their way toward the finals of the Scripps Howard national spelling bee championship in Washington D.C.
0.0After the near death of her grandfather, Chinese Canadian filmmaker Michelle Wong embarks on a personal journey back home to her small town of St. Paul, Alberta to speak to her grandparents about their journey from China to Canada.
7.0Per Persson left Sweden 40 years ago. In Pakistan he fell in love and became the father of two daughters. Trouble starts when the girls grow up and the family decides to emigrate to Sweden. When they end up living in a caravan outside Hässleholm, all their expectations are dashed.
0.0Work. Eat. Sleep. And back to work. For a long time skippers in the North East of Scotland could not find locals to work on their fishing vessels. That was until Filipino fishermen started coming to town for work. Both nationalities strive to shorten the distance between two very different worlds.
5.5A dialogue between the collective and the personal, a living memory that combines the dreams and realities of the Haitian community residing in Chile. This dialogue is guided by the voice of Wilner Petit-Frère, a Haitian immigrant who observes and captures, in a print publication, the society where he ended up living in this stage of his life.
0.0With humor, insight, and compassion, this documentary shares the journey of two Italian brothers who have run a successful restaurant for over 40 years, the sacrifices they’ve made for their children, and what it means to immigrants when they fulfill the American Dream.
7.7Every week, two friends born 67 years apart share their life stories in a senior home's living room. The younger friend convinces the 107-year-old lady to join her in an adventure: a road trip to the sea.
8.5A much loved Parisian-style bistro located in Los Angeles between a thriving McDonalds and KFC, Belle Vie is owned and operated by the charming and hopeful Vincent Samarco, who struggles to adapt, survive and keep the bistro alive in the midst of a pandemic that has ravaged small businesses everywhere.
This Ukrainian-Jewish teenager immigrated to San Francisco as a young child. Now on the brink of adulthood, she interviews her grandparents about their new lives yearning to see her American world through their eyes. Yelena understands that life in the US has changed her profoundly.
0.0A social justice organization based in Oakland-Asian Immigrant Women Advocates-focused on building the collective leadership of limited-English speaking immigrants, and empowered women and youth to become powerful agents of social change.
6.0Oscar, not quite a child anymore, scavenges for scrap metal for his father. He spends his life in improvised landfills among what remains of leftovers. Worlds apart, yet close-by, there is Stanley. He tidies the church in exchange for a monetised hospitality, picks fruits, herds sheep: anything that keep his foreign body busy. Oscar, the young Sicilian, and Stanley the Nigerian don’t seem to have much in common. Except for the feeling of being thrown into the world, to suffer the same refusal, the same overwhelming wave of choices imposed on them by others.
7.0A documentary from within the Swedish Migration Board's locked repository where people are in custody awaiting forced deportation. Prisoner and guard are in close proximity around the clock. Converses during sleepless nights and playing football during hot summer days. We follow Sophie, 29, who loves her job at the repository, Sami, 20, the young rebel who is locked up but free inside, and Aina, 47, who were separated from her children and kept locked up while the police are stepping up efforts to enforce their expulsion order.
0.0Upon his arrival in Paris, filmmaker Tomas Cali immerses himself in learning French, as well as the language of sketching. In an art studio, he meets transgender life model Linda Demorrir, who helps him to connect with himself and his new city in a profoundly different way.
0.0Generation One is a short documentary that explores the perspectives of the American-born children of Arab Muslim immigrants as they navigate their two identities. The film follows the life of a Palestinian-American named Hamoody as he decides to leave his tight-knit Arab community and pursue his independence. With vignette interviews from five other Arab-Americans to supplement Hamoody's story and expound upon certain themes, Generation One sheds light on a range of unique challenges found between the hyphens.
3.0A Finnish documentary follows four young men who have one year to find new love in Helsinki.