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Migration Studies

HAMTRAMCK, USA

By Razi Jafri, Justin Feltman

Once a city that was 90% Polish, Hamtramck became the first Muslim majority city in America. Now, this new wave of immigrants aim to gain representation in city hall.

HAMTRAMCK, USA follows Kamal Rahman, a Bangladeshi candidate for Mayor, Fadel al-Marsoumi, a 23 year old Iraqiimmigrant running for City Council, as well as the current mayor, Karen Majewski, Hamtramck's first female mayor in the city's 100 year lineage of Polish mayors. Throughout the election, candidates look to build support, coalitions, and partnerships across ethnic and religious lines.

Weaved into the election season, the film showcases the vibrant life, celebrations, and culture of those who call this cityhome. At the end of the election, regardless of who ultimately wins, Hamtramck will need to come together, with a new identity or the remaining fragments of the past, to face the many challenges ahead

DVD / 2020 / 89 minutes

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HOME CALLED NEBRASKA, A

Directed by Beth Gage, George Gage

People in Nebraska wholeheartedly welcome refugees and show that the newcomers enrich their communities, their economies, and their lives.

In 2020, with America's Refugee Resettlement Program hanging by a thread, A HOME CALLED NEBRASKA is the story of midwestern welcome, acceptance, and unlikely friendships during a time of national anxiety and emboldened bigotry. In 2016, the conservative state of Nebraska resettled more refugees per capita than any other state.

A HOME CALLED NEBRASKA spotlights people who escaped war, torture and persecution. It also introduces the generous Nebraskans who welcomed them, taught them, celebrated with them, and helped them find jobs and houses. Today these refugees are succeeding, and are giving back to the communities that supported them.

This heartwarming documentary by Beth and George Gage (American Outrage, Bidder 70) offers hope and an antidote to racist nationalism: communities of people in Nebraska who work to dispel fear, build bridges and change their own perceptions along the way. Here is a compelling portrait of ordinary people standing up for what is right, inspiring us to do the same.

DVD / 2020 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 69 minutes

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SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, A

By Lisa Marie Malloy And J.P. Sniadecki

Sundog lives out in the Sonora Desert on the Mexican border. He is an elderly gentleman, who lives off anything that the brutal nature gives him, be it a wild boar or the psychedelic poison of a toad. 'A Shape of Things to Come' gives precedence to the sensory materiality of the desert instead of to explanations and dialogue, and moves beyond the human scale and down to animal perspectives.

It creates a world that stretches from a distant past in the ecological movements of the 1960s to a possible future in the aftermath of the apocalypse. But the border patrol agents are threatening the peace in Sundog's desert kingdom, which the armed recluse is prepared to defend.

With the desert as the ultimate existential (and cinematic) setting, the film shows the relationship between humanity and nature at a critical time, when civil disobedience is the provocative answer to the most pressing questions.

DVD / 2020 / 77 minutes

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STATELESS

By Michele Stephenson

Through the grassroots campaign of attorney Rosa Iris, STATELESS reveals the depths of racial hatred and institutionalized oppression that divide Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

In 1937, tens of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were exterminated by the Dominican army, based on anti-black hatred fomented by the Dominican government. Fast-forward to 2013, the Dominican Republic's Supreme Court stripped the citizenship of anyone with Haitian parents, retroactive to 1929. The ruling rendered more than 200,000 people stateless, without nationality, identity or a homeland. In this dangerous climate, a young attorney named Rosa Iris mounts a grassroots campaign, challenging electoral corruption and advocating for social justice. Director Michèle Stephenson's new documentary Stateless traces the complex tributaries of history and present-day politics, as state-sanctioned racism seeps into mundane offices, living room meetings, and street protests. At a time when extremist ideologies are gaining momentum in the U.S. and around the world, STATELESS is a warning of what can happen in a society when racism runs rampant in the government.

Filmed with a chiaroscuro effect and richly imbued with elements of magical realism, Stateless combines gritty hidden-camera footage with the legend of a young woman fleeing brutal violence to flip the narrative axis, revealing the depths of institutionalized oppression.

DVD (Spanish, Haitian Creole, Color, Closed Captioned) / 2020 / 96 minutes

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BORDER SOUTH

Directed by Raul O. Paz Pastrana

Reveals the resilience, ingenuity and humor of Central American immigrants while exposing a global migration system that renders human beings invisible in life as well as death.

To stem the immigration tide, Mexico and the US collaborate to crack down on migrants, forcing them into ever more dangerous territory.

Every year hundreds of thousands of migrants make their way along the trail running from southern Mexico to the US border. Gustavo's gunshot wounds from Mexican police, which received a lot of press attention, might just earn him a ticket out of Nicaragua. Meanwhile anthropologist Jason De Leon painstakingly collects objects left behind by migrants on the trail, which have their own stories to tell. These remains, from Hondurans crossing through southern Mexico, reveal a vivid portrait of the thousands of immigrants who disappear along the trail.

DVD / 2019 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 83 minutes

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DAY ONE

Directed by Lori Miller

Traumatized Middle Eastern and African teen refugees are guided through a program of healing by devoted educators at a unique St. Louis public school for refugees only.

DAY ONE follows a group of teenage refugees from war-torn countries who are enrolled at a unique public school for refugees and immigrants-only in St. Louis, MO, where they are guided through an inspirational program of education, healing and trauma intervention by devoted educators, some of whom have chosen to relocate to the inner city to support their students.

Over the course of a year, we watch the kids progress through layers of grief and loss as they attend school, forge new friendships, and prepare to be mainstreamed into local public high schools. Their triumphs and tribulations all unfold with St. Louis as the backdrop: a rust-belt city that has taken the bold step of welcoming immigrants as a solution for their growing socio-economic problems.

DVD / 2019 / (Grades 6-12, College, Adults) / 82 minutes

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VITALINA VARELA

By Pedro Costa

Portuguese director Pedro Costa has continually returned in his films to the Fontainhas neighborhood, a shantytown on the outskirts of Lisbon that's home to largely immigrant communities. Not merely a chronicler of the poor and dispossessed, Costa renders onscreen characters that exist somewhere between real and fictional, the living and the dead.

His latest, a film of deeply concentrated beauty, stars nonprofessional actor Vitalina Varela in a truly remarkable performance. Reprising and expanding upon her haunted supporting role from Costa's Horse Money, she plays a Cape Verdean woman who has come to Fontainhas for her husband's funeral after being separated from him for decades due to economic circumstance, and despite her alienation begins to establish a new life there.

The grief of the present and the ghosts of the past commingle in Costa's ravishing chiaroscuro compositions, a film of shadow and whisper that might be the director's most visually extraordinary work. (synopsis courtesy of the New York Film Festival)

DVD / 2019 / 124 minutes

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BIRTH ON THE BORDER

By Ellie Lobovits

This intimate and personal documentary follows two women from Ciudad Juarez as they cross the U.S.-Mexico border legally to give birth in Texas, putting their hearts and bodies on the line as they confront harassment at the hands of U.S. border officials.

One million people legally cross the U.S.-Mexico border every day in both directions. Among them are women who cross for the purposes of childbirth. With the threat of obstetrical violence in Mexican hospitals and the desire for natural birth with midwives, Gaby and Luisa make the difficult decision to cross the border to El Paso, seeking a safer future for their children. Even with papers, their journeys are uncertain.

Against the backdrop of oppressive U.S. border policy and growing debates over immigration, these women's stories of risk, strength, and resilience shed light on the realities and challenges of life on the border.

DVD (English, Spanish, Color, Closed Captioned) / 2018 / 28 minutes

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CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE

Directed by Rosine Mbakam

Sabine attaches a hair weave and gets to work. Her hands move quickly and precisely, as she tightly braids the hair in front of the sign in her salon promising African, European, and American-style coiffure. Sabine is a larger than-life personality crammed into a tiny, glassed-in shop in the largely immigrant Brussels district of Matonge. Here, she and her employees fit extensions and glue on lashes while watching soaps, dishing romantic advice, sharing rumors about government programs to legalize migrants, and talking about people back home in West Africa.

At the start of CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE, filmmaker Rosine Mbakam stands outside the salon, filming. Sabine calls her in, warning her it's unsafe out in hallway of the cramped urban mall. Mbakam sets up in the shop-and stays, filming over the course of a year, becoming a regular fixture and presence. This cinematic "chamber piece" takes place entirely inside the tiny salon, seemingly not much larger than a take-out stand, making skillful use of its many mirrors.

More than a place for women to get their hair done, Jolie Coiffure serves as a community hub for West African women-many from Cameroon, like Sabine. Fueled by endless cans of soda and cups of McDonald's coffee, she recruits for a tontine-an investment scheme paying each member a yearly annuity, organizes accommodation for a pregnant woman who lacks immigration papers, and, in quieter, more introspective moments, tells her own harrowing journey to Belgium after working as a domestic under terrible conditions in Lebanon.

Though she has created a home in her own space, Sabine remains an outsider in Belgium. Students and tourist groups made up only of white people walk past, pausing at the window and gawking. (At one point, Sabine urges Mbakam to turn her camera on them so they'll go away; the director obliges.) When word has it that the immigration police are coming through, she hurriedly turns off all the lights and quickly vanishes out the door.

CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE is a highly revealing documentary, capturing the day-to-day lives and concerns of immigrant West African women in a space they can call their own.

DVD (French with English Subtitles, Color) / 2018 / 70 minutes

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COLOSSUS

Director: Jonathan Schienberg

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" - from The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus

Told through the eyes of 15-year-old Jamil Sunsin, Colossus is a modern-day immigrant tale of one family's desperate struggle after deportation leads to family separation, and the elusive search for the American dream.

Jamil is the only person in his family born in the U.S. His parents and sister came from Honduras and lived in America for a decade before Jamil's father was arrested for being undocumented. The entire family was forced to return to Honduras, a country wracked with violence. After a knife attack traumatizes Jamil, his family makes an excruciating choice to send him back to the U.S. alone.

Now 15, Jamil tries to survive without his family and fights against a broken immigration system. Back in Honduras, his sister Mirka, who would've been eligible for DACA had she remained in the U.S., hopes to someday reunite with Jamil. This intimate portrait is a rare look into the aftermath of deportation and family separation, amidst the current backlash against America's immigrants.

DVD (English, Spanish, With English Subtitles) / 2018 / 84 minutes

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SOUNDS OF IMMIGRATION

Directors: Yael Kipper & Ronen Zaretzky

A cinematic-literary look at the lives of immigrants, who came to Israel over the course of 20 years, all residents of Block 461 in Maalot-Tarshiha, a mixed city in the North of Israel. The film observes the lives of people who immigrated from Russia and are still searching for their place, people who fled Lebanon 14 years ago when they were children and are just starting to realize how complex their lives are, and young people from the community of ''Bnei Menashe'', Kuki people who just arrived from Manipur, India on the Myanmar border, and moved directly to Maalot. The film presents a dialogue between cinematographic expression and a literary text written by Israeli novelist Sara Shilo.

DVD (Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Hindi, With English Subtitles) / 2018 / 82 minutes

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THIS IS HOME: A REFUGEE STORY

Directed by Alexandra Shiva

Sundance award-winner puts a human face on the global refugee crisis by providing an intimate portrait of four Syrian refugees arriving in the US and struggling to find their footing.

THIS IS HOME is an intimate portrait of four Syrian refugee families arriving in America and struggling to find their footing. With only eight months of help from the International Rescue Committee to become self-sufficient, they must forge ahead to rebuild their lives in a new home: Baltimore, Maryland. They attend cultural orientation classes and job training sessions where they must "learn America" -- everything from how to take public transportation to negotiating new gender roles.

When the newly imposed travel ban adds further questions and complications, their strength and resilience are put to the test. Through humor and heartbreak, this universal story illuminates what it's like to start over, no matter the obstacles. THIS IS HOME goes beyond the statistics, headlines, and political rhetoric to tell deeply personal stories, putting a human face on the global refugee crisis.

DVD / 2018 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 91 minutes

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STILL WATERS

Directed by Peter Gordon

In his tiny, one-room, after hours, free school in Brooklyn, Stephen Haff teaches forty Hispanic kids reading, creative writing and Latin.

A remarkable one-room school in Brooklyn is facing a tough year. It's the run up to the US presidential election and anti-Latino rhetoric is ramped up--an extra source of tension for a hard-pressed Hispanic community already threatened by gentrification and eviction.

The school, Still Waters in a Storm, is the creation of Yale grad Stephen Haff. A passionate critic of mainstream education, he believes in the joy of learning without tests and the innate creativity of children and insists that the school is free. It survives precariously on the thinnest of shoestrings.

When regular school finishes, Still Waters starts working. Stephen and his group of children explore, with the help of illustrious guest writers like twice Booker Prizewinner Peter Carey, the power of storytelling, creativity and community. And along the way they discuss Donald Trump and gentrification with humor and passion.

Filmed over a year STILL WATERS follows this compelling man, his philosophy, the spirit of the children who attend, and the dreams and fears of their immigrant Hispanic community.

DVD / 2017 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 79 minutes

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BABYLON DREAMERS

Director: Roman Shumunov

Headspins, windmills, and b-boying: a group of immigrants from the former Soviet Union form a breakdancing troupe in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Israel. They dream of competing in the International Breakdancing Competition in Germany, but the road is paved with hardship and crisis. Lacking an instructor, they learn moves from videotapes and move one step closer to their goal.

DVD (Russian, Hebrew, English, With English Subtitles) / 2016 / 90 minutes

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STRANGER, THE

By Linda Midgett

The Stranger is a 40-minute documentary film commissioned by the Evangelical Immigration Table. The film's log line best describes it: "Immigrants, Scripture and the American Dream".

The film profiles three immigrant stories and includes interviews with local and national Christian leaders. By highlighting biblical teaching related to immigrants, sharing compelling stories of immigrants who are also evangelical Christians, and addressing some common economic and political misconceptions, The Stranger seeks to mobilize viewers to respond to immigrants and to immigration policy in ways that are consistent with biblical principles.

DVD (Color) / 2016 / 40 minutes

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DON'T TELL ANYONE (NO LE DIGAS A NADIE)

By Mikaela Shwer

Since the age of 4, Angy Rivera has lived in the United States with a secret that threatens to upend her life: She is undocumented. Angy arrived with her mother, fleeing violence, poverty, and civil war in their native Colombia. For 20 years they live in the shadows, struggling to stay afloat financially and avoid deportation while battling a complex and inequitable immigration system. "Don't tell anyone" is a phrase whispered often and branded deeply on the consciousness of all who are undocumented.

Now 24, unable to pay tuition for college and facing an uncertain future, Angy joins the youth-led New York State Youth Leadership Council (YLC) with whom she dons a bullhorn at pro-immigration rallies, telling all who will listen that she is "undocumented and proud." Rivera becomes an activist for undocumented youth with a popular advice blog "Ask Angy" and a YouTube channel boasting more than 27,000 views. She steps out of the shadows a second time to share her story of sexual abuse, an experience all too common among undocumented women. DON'T TELL ANYONE (NO LE DIGAS A NADIE) follows Rivera's remarkable journey from poverty in rural Colombia to the front page of The New York Times

DVD (Color) / 2015 / 75 minutes

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EAST OF SALINAS

Directed by Laura Pacheco, Jackie Mow

Jose Anzaldo is an excellent student with a bright future except that he is undocumented, the child of migrant farm laborers in California's Salinas Valley.

EAST OF SALINAS begins with 3rd grader Jose Anzaldo telling us what he wants to be when he grows up. His parents work from sun up to sun down in the heart of California's "Steinbeck Country," the Salinas Valley. With little support available at home, Jose often turns to his teacher, Oscar Ramos, once a migrant farm kid himself. In fourth grade his teacher told him if he worked hard he could have a different life. Oscar won a scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley. The day he earned his degree, he bought a car and drove home to the fields. He's been teaching ever since.

Jose is Oscar's most gifted student. But how do you teach students like Jose who have no place to do their homework? How do you teach a kid who moves every few months? This is what Oscar is up against every day. Oscar not only teaches his students reading, math and science, he gives them access to a world beyond their reach.

But Jose was born in Mexico--and he's on the cusp of understanding the implications of that. As we watch this play out over three years, we begin to understand the cruelty of circumstance--for Jose and the many millions of undocumented kids like him.

EAST OF SALINAS asks, What is lost when kids like Jose are denied opportunities?

DVD / 2015 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 53 minutes

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HAND THAT FEEDS, THE

Directed by Rachel Lears, Robin Blotnick

Shy sandwich-maker Mahoma Lopez unites his undocumented immigrant coworkers to fight abusive conditions at a popular New York restaurant chain.

At a popular bakery cafe, residents of New York's Upper East Side get bagels and coffee served with a smile 24 hours a day. But behind the scenes, undocumented immigrant workers face sub-legal wages, dangerous machinery, and abusive managers who will fire them for calling in sick. Mild-mannered sandwich maker Mahoma Lopez has never been interested in politics, but in January 2012, he convinces a small group of his co-workers to fight back.

Risking deportation and the loss of their livelihood, the workers team up with a diverse crew of innovative young organizers and take the unusual step of forming their own independent union, launching themselves on a journey that will test the limits of their resolve. In one roller-coaster year, they must overcome a shocking betrayal and a two-month lockout. Lawyers will battle in back rooms, Occupy Wall Street protesters will take over the restaurant, and a picket line will divide the neighborhood. If they can win a contract, it will set a historic precedent for low-wage workers across the country. But whatever happens, Mahoma and his coworkers will never be exploited again.

DVD / 2014 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 84 minutes

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NI AQUI, NI ALLA (NEITHER HERE, NOR THERE)

By Gabriela Bortolamedi

NI AQUI, NI ALLA illuminates the challenges facing undocumented college students and their families around the country. Blanca, a second-year student at the University of California, Berkeley, crossed the border from Mexico into the United States with her parents when she was a child. As a student under the DREAM Act, Blanca has temporary protection from deportation, though her undocumented parents, who live and work in California's agricultural Central Valley, do not. NI AQUI, NI ALLA paints an intimate portrait of an undocumented family as they support each other during a turning point in their lives and stay together through the distance. At a time in this country's history where the debate around immigration is highly contested and demands to close the border are in the daily news, NEITHER HERE, NOR THERE paints a very human face on an issue that many use simply as partisan, political fodder. Essential viewing for Sociology and Multicultural and Immigration Studies.

DVD (Spanish, Color) / 2014 / 24 minutes

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RED LEAVES

By Bazi Gete

"Red Leaves" examines the life of a man, Meseganio Tadela (Debebe Eshetu), a 74-year-old recent widower and Ethiopian immigrant. Following the death of his wife, Meseganio sells his apartment and plans on living the rest of his days alternately living with the families of his sons. However, once put into practice, he discovers that his hard-lined traditional values are challenged by family members.

Meseganio Tadela immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia 28 years ago with his family. He chose to zealously retain his culture, talks very little, and hardly speaks Hebrew. After losing his wife, Meseganio sets out on a journey that leads him through his children's homes. He comes to realize that he belongs to a rapidly disappearing class that believes in retaining Ethiopian culture. As this harsh reality begins to hit him, he struggles to survive according to his own rules.

DVD (Amharic with English Subtitles) / 2014 / 80 minutes

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SEARCH FOR GENERAL TSO, THE

Directed by Ian Cheney

A quest to understand the origins of this ubiquitous, spicy red chicken dish and to explore the history of Chinese-American food.

This mouthwateringly entertaining film travels the globe to unravel a captivating culinary mystery. General Tso's Chicken is a staple of Chinese-American cooking, and a ubiquitous presence on restaurant menus across the country. But just who was General Tso? And how did his chicken become emblematic of an entire national cuisine?

Director Ian Cheney journeys from Shanghai to New York to the American Midwest and beyond to uncover the origins of this iconic dish, turning up surprising revelations and a host of humorous characters along the way. Told with the verve of a good detective story, THE SEARCH FOR GENERAL TSO is as much about food as it is a tale of the American immigrant experience.

DVD / 2014 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 73 minutes

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THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE UTOPIA

Filmmaker Joel Gilbert travels across America confronting progressives, and finds out they are regressing.

Why did Dorothy follow the yellow brick road? Film maker Joel Gilbert journeys across America to find out what's at the end of the Progressive rainbow-Utopia or something far worse? From the ruins of Detroit to the slums of Chicago's South Side, and from Denver's illegal immigration invasion to Newark's urban removal project, Gilbert pulls back the curtain. He confronts Progressives on his quest, and takes us deep into their political fantasy of paradise on earth.

There's No Place Like Utopia is a humorous and horrifying exploration of Progressivism, amnesty for illegals, race relations, Islam in America, political correctness, and Barack Obama himself, who promises to "remake the world as it should be."

But is Utopia a real destination for America? Or, does the true path to happiness still remain faith, family, and hard work-back home in Kansas?

DVD / 2014 / 150 minutes

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LAS MARTHAS

By Cristina Ibarra

Unlike any other, the annual debutante ball in Laredo, Texas is part of a lucrative month-long festival honoring George Washington's birthday. LAS MARTHAS follows two young women as they prepare for this elaborate rite of passage: Laurita, a 13th-generation debutante descended from Laredo's original Spanish land grantees who questions debutante society's class system geared toward girls like herself; and Rosario, a high-achieving, Mexican-raised and U.S.-schooled outsider struggling to understand the elite society's unspoken rules.

Tracing the event's origins back to 1898, the film works to unravel why a town like Laredo - with a population that is 98% Mexican - feels such affinity for America's Founding Father. Despite history and all odds, the celebration perseveres and flourishes thanks to the Mexican American girls who wear the gilded burden of our past. LAS MARTHAS is a beautifully drawn and sometimes humorous, coming of age portrait of these two young women as they navigate this complex tradition in a time of economic uncertainty and political tension over immigration and Border relations between the US and Mexico.

DVD (Color) / 2013 / 69 minutes

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BACK TO CASABLANCA (SON OF THE LAND)

Director: Sigalit Banai

Israeli actor and director Ze'ev Revach was born in Morocco in 1940. He sets out on a journey back to Casablanca, in search of a Moroccan actor to star alongside him in his next film, which he dreams that he'll be able to distribute around the Arab world. He connects with his mother tongue, discovers the commonalities between the two cultures, but his mission is not a simple one. Revach's heart sways between Diaspora and Homeland, between authentic and imagined Moroccan belonging and between the script of the dream and the reality.

DVD (Hebrew, French, Arabic, With English Subtitles) / 2012 / 50 minutes

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FUTURE FOOD: STAY OR GO? (CHINA)

Directed by Alex Gabbay

Who will grow China's food as young people leave the countryside for the cities?

In many remote areas of China young people have little choice but to stay on the land, and yet they may face a destitute future, with millions of farmworkers in China earning less than two dollars a day. Although there are some exceptions, farming is not generally seen as a "sexy" career choice.

The reality is that in China and around the world, young people are fleeing the countryside and moving to the big cities. Who will grow the food that feeds future generations? How can young people be convinced that farming is a good option? Californian-born Rand and his wife Sherry are the founders of Resonance China, a social media agency in Shanghai. They use the internet to create and identify trends and tricks that can create a buzz for global brands. FUTURE FOOD sets Resonance a task: can they make farming popular with young people?

DVD / 2012 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 29 minutes

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BETTER LIFE, A: UNA VIDA MEJOR

By Olivia Carrescia

After 30 years of war, a difficult peace, migration, economic, social and cultural upheaval, for her new film Olivia Carrescia returns to Todos Santos, to examine the changes that have taken place. The Todos Santeros now have cell phones, TV's and large cinderblock houses, but are they better off?

The civil strife of the 1980's ended in the official Peace Accord of 1996, but left many of the conflict's underlying social and economic problems unresolved. An increasing number of Todos Santos, rather than traveling as they had done for generations to the coastal cotton plantations, began traveling back and forth to the U.S.-legally or illegally. They sent back cash remittances that those who were left behind used for household necessities, and later for clothes, electronics and other items. Before long, homes similar to those the migrants saw in the United States and in the luxury resorts of Cancun, Mexico, began springing up in this traditional Mayan village. As a result, Todos Santos grew and prospered, becoming a commercial hub in the northwestern mountains of Guatemala.

But the prosperity was not to last. Long term migration and the economic crisis of 2008 in the U.S. has had severe repercussions in this once small mountain village.

In A BETTER LIFE we meet again Santiaga, the weaver and resourceful homemaker, Benito, the former school teacher, and Desiderio, the wise environmentalist-all familiar to those who have seen the Todos Santos trilogy of films. Along with returning migrants and newly introduced villagers, young and old, the impact of profound change and altered expectations is explored with the sensitivity, awareness and insight that have characterized this documentary series.

DVD (Color) / 2011 / 52 minutes

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BROTHER TOWNS / PUEBLOS HERMANOS

Directed by Charles D. Thompson, Jr. and Michael Davey

An uplifting story about Jupiter, Florida's humane response to an influx of day laborers from Jacaltenango, Guatemala.

Brother Towns is a story of two towns linked by immigration, family, and work: Jacaltenango, a highland Maya town in Guatemala; and Jupiter, a coastal resort town where many Jacaltecos have settled in Florida.

Brother Towns chronicles a story of how and why people migrate across borders, how people make and remake their communities when they travel thousands of miles from home, and how people maintain families despite their travel. Because we are all immigrants, this is a universal human story, and a quintessential American one. All of us understand family.

Brother Towns is also a story of local and international controversy. News of undocumented immigrants is familiar in nearly every community across the U.S., and citizens must choose how they respond to this issue.

Our story includes voices of those opposed to undocumented immigrants as well as advocates helping migrants who seek work and hope, whether documented or not.

DVD / 2010 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 58 minutes

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WHICH WAY HOME - ORIGINAL

Directed by Rebecca Cammisa

The personal side of immigration as child migrants from Mexico and Central America risk everything to make it to the US riding atop freight trains.

As the United States continues to build a wall between itself and Mexico, WHICH WAY HOME shows the personal side of immigration through the eyes of children who face harrowing dangers with enormous courage and resourcefulness as they endeavor to make it to the United States.

The film follows several unaccompanied child migrants as they journey through Mexico en route to the U.S. on a freight train they call " The Beast." Director Rebecca Cammisa ("Sister Helen") tracks the stories of children like Olga and Freddy, nine-year old Hondurans who are desperately trying to reach their families in Minnesota, and Jose, a ten-year-old El Salvadoran who has been abandoned by smugglers and ends up alone in a Mexican detention center, and focuses on Kevin, a canny, streetwise 14-year-old Honduran, fleeing an abusive stepfather, and whose mother hopes that he will reach New York City and send money back to his family. These are stories of hope and courage, disappointment and sorrow. They are the ones you never hear about - the invisible ones.

DVD / 2009 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adult) / 83 minutes

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MAYAN TRILOGY, A: LIFE, DEATH & MIGRATION

By Olivia Carrescia

Filmed over 15 years, beginning with her classic documentary TODOS SANTOS CUCHUMATAN: Report from a Guatemala Village (1982), Olivia Carrescia's three films on the Mayan Indians of Guatemala preserve a record, and provide an acute observation on how the indigenous culture has been affected by, yet survived, that country's tumultuous history.

The trilogy starts with TODOS SANTOS CUCHUMATAN which provides an intimate look at everyday life in Todos Santos, a village in Guatemala's highlands, before the civil war of the mid 1980's, and ominously illustrates social changes in the lives of Guatemalan Indians leading to the political upheaval.

Seven years later in TODOS SANTOS: THE SURVIVORS (1989) the filmmaker returns to find the once quiet village she had documented changed forever by the political turmoil. A haunting look underneath the silence which blanketed Guatemala, the film records the legacy of a bloody civil war, and the wounds that remain unhealed even after the guns have stopped firing.

Fleeing this violence, many Mayan families emigrated to the United States. Set in Florida and Massachusetts, MAYAN VOICES: AMERICAN LIVES (1994) contrasts their experiences as refugees with the struggles of those continuing to arrive in search of better lives. The film also explores issues of identity, cultural integration, migration, and social change.

This collection of three films is a unique, essential document of the recent history and evolving society of an indigenous Central American community.

DVD (Color) / 2008 / 155 minutes

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RAIN IN A DRY LAND

Directed by Anne Makepeace

Two Somali Bantu families leave behind a legacy of slavery in Africa and find new homes in urban America.

In 2004, thirteen thousand Somali Bantu refugees realized their dream of coming to America. They are now living in fifty cities across the country, becoming the largest African group from a single minority to settle in the United States at one time.

RAIN IN A DRY LAND chronicles two years in the lives of two extended Somali Bantu families as they leave behind a two-hundred year legacy of oppression in Africa to face new challenges in a strange new land. The film begins in January, 2004, at the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where our featured families are stunned by what they learn about America in their "Cultural Orientation" class: refrigerators, stoves, bathtubs, elevators, stairs, buildings taller than one storey, schools, and all the things we take for granted in modern life. As their awe and excitement grow, the audience fears for them. How will these illiterate Muslim farmers who speak no English manage to survive in America?

These opening scenes in Kakuma introduce our featured families, both dynamic, charismatic, and very different in nature. Arbai is quick, strong, affectionate, a single mother of four with a great sense of humor and an easy contagious laugh, despite her devastating past.

Madina is fierce, vulnerable, wounded, strong; her husband Aden is volatile, moody, soulful, determined to provide for his huge family but uncertain and a bit naïve about the life that lies ahead. Their witty, resourceful teenage sons, Ali (17) and Warsame (15), figure prominently in the film, as do Arbai's beautiful teenage daughters, Sahara (13) and Khadija (16).

The documentary follows these two families to America and through their first two years in their new homes. Aden and Madina, sponsored by Jewish Family Service, settle in the grim mill-town of Springfield, Massachusetts; while Arbai's family settles in Atlanta.

Despite racism, poverty, failures of the school system, and severe culture shock, both families do find ways to survive in America, and to create a safe haven for their war-torn families. The film ends with two vivid celebrations: the naming ceremony of Aden and Madina's first American-born child; and the traditional wedding of Arbai's oldest daughter, a colorful reunion of hundreds of Somali Bantu families converging on Atlanta from all over America.

DVD (Color) / 2006 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 82 minutes

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