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Casimiro tells the story of an illegal immigrant living in central Texas. As Casimiro tries to write a comforting letter to his family back home, we experience the truth about his days in America. The story follows him through his difficult routine, and demonstrates how a lonely man copes with hardships.
Conversations II offers an intimate look at the female universe; a journey in time through evocative images and the testimonies of women from the same family. Through the personal search of a daughter into the lives of her mother and grandmother, the film explores the evolution of the female role in a Latin American society and how the views of marriage and motherhood have changed with each generation, as well as the view that women have of themselves.
What do you do if the day your first child is to be born is also the same day your father is to be executed? If you are twenty-six-year old Manny, you use your father's impending execution as an excuse to flee the daunting responsibility of fatherhood. There's only one problem: Manny lives in Monterrey, Mexico and his father sits in on death row in Texas. Against his wife's wishes, Manny embarks on an ill-planned quest to cross the border to see his father, hoping that the trip will buy him time and insight into his upcoming responsibility.
Ten year old Lizzy and Raúl live next door to each other in a duplex. Through the wall, Raúl hears Lizzy’s parents argue night after night as they head toward divorce, prompting him to try to find a way to help his friend escape her traumatic situation. This is a story about two children and their strength to overcome the common tragedies of everyday life.
Exiled In America is a film that explores immigration issues in the United States related to detention and deportation from the point of view of those most affected: children. Over 1.5 million immigrants have been deported since 1996—a policy that has torn families apart and led to human rights violations. Exiled In America tells the story of five siblings who struggle to live in America after their mother was deported to Mexico.
Los ojos de Javier is a short narrative written and shot in two days for the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities. It tells the story of Javier, who wakes up one day to find that his eyes have walked out on him. They did not bother trying to explain the reasons why, they just packed up their stuff and left. The film deals in a light, comedic way with the serious issues of soul disability and loss of identity.
Rosa is a Mexican woman who, in 1999, at the age of 17, migrated illegally to Austin, Texas. In January of 2003, she was arrested for suspicion of murder and then sent to trial in August 2005. Rosa’s imprisonment in a foreign country, the judicial process, the verdict, the separation from her family, and her powerlessness make Mi vida dentro a true and revealing look into the life of Mexican immigrants in the United States.
Six months after Bob Mader passed away in 2005, his son, Austin filmmaker Berndt Mader, discovers his father’s camera loaded with a last roll of film. In an attempt to deal with his grief, Berndt decides to finish this final roll in the small Mexican village of Tlacotepec—a town his father had visited and photographed 40 years before. On his journey to this obscure Mexican village, Berndt is diverted to the country of Belize where his sister has run into legal trouble in her adoption of a Belizian baby. After this detour and other misadventures, Berndt finally makes it to the town in Mexico. There he discovers there are possible connections to the past and answers to the questions of his own memory.
On May 20th, 1997, the team leader of a four-man US Marine unit conducting a counter-narcotics mission near border-town of Redford, Texas shot and killed 18-year-old Esequiel Hernández, Jr. within sight of the Hernández home. It was the first time an American citizen had been killed on US soil by the military or National Guard since 1970. None of the marines was ever charged with a crime. Compelled by the current political climate on the US-Mexico Border, the marines agreed to be interviewed for the first time for The Ballad of Esequiel Hernández. The film contrasts their frustration and guilt at having killed one of the citizens they were pledged to protect, with the anger and grief of a family whose son died at the hands of their own military. Narrated by Texas’ own Tommy Lee Jones.
As part of its new policy to end the “catch and release” of undocumented immigrants, the U.S. government opened the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in May 2006 as a prototype family detention facility. The facility is a former medium-security prison in central Texas operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison operator in the country. The facility houses immigrant children and their parents from all over the world who are awaiting asylum hearings or deportation proceedings. As information about troubling conditions at the facility leaks out, three activist attorneys seek to investigate and address the issues.
This is the story of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, a Native American tribe indigenous to the state. Though they have been present in Texas and the surrounding areas for hundreds of years, their story is hardly taught and their existence is not recognized. In October 2008, members of the Lipan Apache Tribe opened the first museum for the continuation and preservation of their culture. This documentary aims to bring awareness to one Native American group that has become endangered through centuries of oppression and assimilation. As Lipan Tom Castillo expressed, “Hopefully now we can tell our story. Without fear.”
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