Migrant Voices Film Screening

29th San Diego Latino Film Festival & San Diego UnionTribune are honored to present this year’s finalists for our annual Migrant Voices Film Competition. We received entries from around the world; and we’re excited to share the best films with you on the big screen. he had to undertake and does so through the sensations, lights, sounds and memories of him. A non-stop roundup that wants to bring the viewer to reflect and identify with him.

YOU MUST HAVE COME FROM HELL (Dir. Hayfaa Chalabi, Sweden, 5:22 min)

In her short film, Chalabi tells about her own asylum experience and the roles that refugees are forced into in Sweden. She explores the impact of structural apathy towards refugees in migration offices, socio-political discourse, and private spaces. The work becomes a place for memory and history writing where Chalabi tries to understand how to document a process that is prohibited to be documented by the person undergoing it. Animation in this film is a tool that serves an aim beyond its practical aspect of depicting a narrative. It is a resistance against the restrictions of filming, recording, and photographing whatever happens inside the Migration Board’s offices in Sweden.

LET GO (Dir. TAR BAZANCIR, Sweden, 3 min.)

A story about people of flesh and blood, torn apart by illusions named border, nations and race.

CHAPARRAL

(Dirs. Jorge Armando Nieto Sanchez, Alma Yolanda Morales Gonzalez, Mexico, 4:57 min)

The moments of happiness in the midst of a tragedy are like grains of gold in a sea of darkness: difficult to find but once found they shine light and transform the energy of everyone around. Like gold prospectors, Journalists & Creators Yolanda Morales and Jorge Nieto spent 353 days exploring the limits of a refugee camp that became home to more than 2,500 migrants on the border between Mexico and the United States. It was there they discovered that a hot meal or a drawing made by a child on a piece of recycled cardboard represented everyone's hope.)

PREMONITION (Dir. Sandeep Parupudi, USA, 5 min.)

The finalists will be screened on:

Tuesday, March 15th at 7pm @ AMC Mission Valley Cinemas.

Join us for a post-screening Q&A with filmmakers & Jury President & filmmaker, Alex Rivera (2021 Macarthur Fellow, Sleep Dealer, Infiltrators) and for the announcement of the 2 big winners! Paola Hernandez, San Diego Union Tribune, will facilitate the discussion. Finalists include:

THANK YOU, COME AGAIN (Dir, Nirav Bhakta, USA, 5:45 min.)

Thank You, Come Again was inspired by an overwhelming feeling of being an undocumented South Asian American in a post 9/11 world. Most South Asians at the time were stereotyped in extremes of comedic caricatures thanks to the Simpsons or as dangerous threats. This is my way of humanizing the immigrants that work behind the counters of convenience stores.

ARCHITECT OF LITTLE BAGHDAD (Dir. Diego Lynch, USA, 5 min) This short showcases a story of an immigrant stuck in a country during COVID-19 pandemic. This is a voice to many other immigrants that shared the same experience and struggles during the pandemic. What can an immigrant do when the gut feeling about something bad that is about to happen indeed takes place, yet so helpless due to the nature of the pandemic?

THE GREAT VICTORY OF ISABEL (Dir. Sean McCoy, USA, 5 min) Isabel Virasingh came to the United States in the 1970s from Ecuador looking for a better life and a means to support her family. Growing up in Arlington Virginia's 8th district, she and her husband worked to support her daughter despite the steep obstacle of immigrating to the US. This story isn't about spectacular poverty, but the layers of hardship those seeking aslyum and opportunity within the States face across generations. This is also the story of why Victoria Virasingh, Isabel's daughter is now running for Congress in the House of Representatives.

Dr. Thabit Kalaf was a member of Iraq's first post-colonial generation. His hope of an architecture career crashed on the rocks of history, and he wound up in California's Little Baghdad.

MESOGEIOS (Dir. Marco Biotto, Italy, 2:30 min)

Mesogeios spotlights the modern odyssey that many humans embark on in search of a future for them and their families. The short tells the true journey of Fayad (protagonist of the short)

NOTES FROM A LONG WALK (Dir. Franc Gabriel Contreras, Mexico, 5 min)

In the early 1990s, Haitian-born Jean Daniel Cerán lost his parents at an early age. When political turmoil devastated his Caribbean nation, he suffered a severe injury and nearly lost a leg. Once healed, he decided to seek a better life in neighboring and distant nations. On the long road through South and Central American, he learned five languages and at least three trades. Walking has been

his only way to move forward in life. This short non-fiction film features original footage from Central America and several parts of Mexico, including Tapachula, Ciudad Acuña and Mexico City.

IF YOU'RE HAPPY THERE, I'M HAPPY HERE (Dir. David Peinado

Romero, Mexico, 5 min)

Eva is a 33-year-old woman who, together with her 15-year-old daughter, undertook a trip from Honduras to the United States, they managed to reach Ciudad Juárez where they crossed the border together to later be expelled under title 42, a week later Eva took her decision to accompany her daughter to the Rio Bravo so that she turns herself in to the border patrol with the hope that she would be able to obtain asylum in the United States on her own.

THE AFGHAN JOURNALIST (Dir. Bettina Hanna, USA, 4:58 min)

An Afghan journalist escaped from Afghanistan and the Taliban and is now living in the United States. After spending three months in a military base, he is currently living in San Diego. When he was fleeing, he also helped two other women escape. They have since been reunited in San Diego and are happy to live without fear or danger.

GOODBYE CHAPADREAM (Dir. Luis Gutierrez, Mexico, 5 min.)

Photodocumentary about the improvised camp in the Mexican side of the San Ysidro Port of Entry from February 2021 to February 2022.

CHALLENGING THE STIGMA: COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS

WITH REFUGEE COMMUNITIES (Dir. Kayla Richele Marie Mulholland, USA, 6 min)

As mental health struggles and suicide rates in San Diego's refugee communities are on the rise, community health workers discuss some of the root causes and propose new solutions. These community leaders believe that courageous conversations about mental health issues are key to combating the stigma and improving their community health outcomes.

JURY MEMBERS INCLUDE

Alex Rivera, Luis Cruz, Davide Pinto, Paulina Casmur, Sonia Mehrmand, Lorena Mostajo, Kian Mirnezam, Shelby B. Courtney, Luis Cruz, Laura Castaneda, Norma Iglesias

HIDDEN TRAVELERS (Dir. Eduardo Ortiz, Mexico, 5 min.)

A young man from Honduras tells us about his last moments in Mexican territory and how society has been transforming him.

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