Made in L.A. 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Children in No Man's Land 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM
A Forgotten Injustice 9:00 PM - 10:30 PM
*Film Producers of These Films Will be Coming to
Speak!*
Film Festival
Schedule for Saturday April 11
De Nadie 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Lunch and Meet the Producers 12:00
PM - 1:00 PM
Voice of the Mountain 1:00 PM -
2:15 PM
USA v. Al Arian 2:15 PM - 4:00 PM
La Americana 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Click
Here for Film
Festival Schedule
Feature
Films
Made in L.A.
(Producer Will Be Coming to Speak at the Film Fest and the Conference)
Directed by: Almudena Carracedo & Robert Behar
View Trailer: http://www.madeinla.com/
Made in L.A. follows the remarkable story of three Latina immigrants
working in Los Angeles garment sweatshops as they embark on a three-year
odyssey to win basic labor protections from a mega-trendy clothing retailer.
In intimate verite style, Made in L.A. reveals the impact of the struggle on
each woman’s life as they are gradually transformed by the experience.
Compelling, humorous, deeply human, Made in L.A. is a story about
immigration, the power of unity, and the courage it takes to find your
voice.
La Americana
(Chicago Premier! Producer Will Be Coming to Speak at the Film Fest
and the Conference)
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Directed and Produced By Nicholas
Bruckman
Co-Director John Mattiuzzi
Co-Producer Jesse Thomas
View Trailer: http://www.activistvideo.org/views.asp?id=501
Carmen never planned to come to the United
States, but when her daughter Carla was only nine-years-old,
tragedy struck. Carmen left Carla behind in Bolivia and made
the dangerous and illegal journey to New York City where she could
earn enough to support her ailing daughter, knowing she may never
return home. But after six years of separation, congress
proposes 'amnesty' legislation that could allow Carmen and Carla
to be reunited again.
Will Carmen stay and fight for the American
dream, or be home as promised for Carla's quinceañera?
Filmed in three countries and told through an intimate cinema-vérité
narrative, her unforgettable story is woven into the current
immigration debate in the United States, putting a human face on
this timely and controversial issue.
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USA vs Al-Arian
(member of the Al-Arian Family Will be Coming to Speak at the Film
Festival!)
Diected by: Line Halvorsen
View Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcV9no5TUwU
In February 2003, university professor and pro-Palestinian civil rights
activist Sami Al-Arian was arrested in Tampa, Florida, charged with
providing material support to a terror organization. For two-and-a-half
years he was held in solitary confinement, denied basic privileges and given
limited access to his attorneys. While the Bush administration considered
this a landmark case in its campaign against international terrorism, Sami
Al-Arian claims he was targeted in an attempt to silence his political
views.
The film follows Sami Al-Arian’s wife Nahla and their five children
throughout his 6 month-long trial. It is an intimate family portrait that
documents the strain brought on by the trial, a battle waged both in court
and in the media. In the film a tight-knit family unravels before our very
eyes as trial preparations, strategy and spin consume their lives. This is a
nightmare come to life, as a man is prosecuted for his beliefs rather than
his actions.
The film raises questions on whether it is possible for a man like Sami
Al-Arian to receive a fair trial in the United States given the current
hostile environment against Muslims and the strong US support of Israel. It
presents democracy in a new light in a post-9/11 culture of fear, where
"security measures" trump free speech and punishment is meted out
in the name of protection. It is an example of how the American
government’s hunt for terrorists is a struggle that can be seen from
multiple angles.
Lost in Haiti
(Producer Will Be Coming to Speak at the Film Fest and the Conference)
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Directed by: Gregory Jesus Luc
View Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zNz1bILV6c
A documentary exploring the social, cultural,
political, and personal ramifications endeavored by many current
and future deportee's returned to Haiti, their birth-land under
the new U.S. Immigration Laws. Our Haitian-American perspective
will explore the root cause of ap to oppress, assimilate, and
acculturate propriation and objectification of the Haitian culture
and history as a tool the deportees. We will reveal how the United
States Immigration and deportation process functions and the
effects change on the lives of long-time U.S. residents and their
families left behind using dramatic personal first hand accounts.
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A Forgotten Injustice
(Producer Will Be Coming to Speak at the Film Fest Opening Night Friday
April 10!)
Produced by: Vicente Serrano
News Anchor - Telemundo Chicago
“A Forgotten Injustice” is the first
film that uncovers the massive “deportation” of almost two
million U.S citizens and legal residents who were forced out of the
Unites States during the Great Depression in the 1930s. These people
were forced to leave because of one reason: They were of Mexican
descent.
When the stock market and U.S. economy crashed in
1929, U.S. officials sought a convenient scapegoat, a quick solution
to their problem. They tightened immigration rules and focused on
sending Mexicans across the border. According to some government
officials, Mexicans were taking jobs and welfare benefits away from
"real" Americans. As the Depression engulfed the United
States in the early 1930s, fear and anxiety spread among the Mexican
community as a result of the anti-Mexican sentiment that was
developing. It turned out that local, state, and national officials
had teamed up with private entities to launch massive efforts to get
rid of them.
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Official Selection: Chicago
Latino Film Festival 2009
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The Deportee's Wife
*Special Live Performance*
By: Giselle Stern Hernández
View Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoJg9Ye3buk
In this solo show, Giselle Stern Hernández’s marriage is laid out on
the front lines of the North American immigration debate. Giselle’s
husband, Roberto was deported from Chicago, Illinois back to Mexico in April
of 2001. Giselle moved to Mexico to live with him in August of that
same year. While she was born and raised in the States, and they were
legally married, it didn't make a difference at all; her husband was
deported anyway, with the order to stay out of the U.S. for twenty years.
And then there came the day that he wasn't allowed to enter Canada.
Through music and images, she tells their unforgettable story. In
THE DEPORTEE'S WIFE, Giselle brings a clear, distinctive and personal voice
to an issue that's often swept away between sound bites and presidential
campaigns.
Giselle tells you a love story you'll never forget.
April
11: Immigrant Conference Community Town Hall & Benefit After Party
Time: Saturday April 11th 7:00
PM - 10:30 PM
Town Hall Meeting & Cultural
Festival: 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Benefit After Party: 9:00 PM - 10:30 PM
Location: UIC Student Center
West 828 South Wolcott, Chicago, IL
Ticket: .00/person (all income
will be benefit National Immigrant Solidarity Network)
*This is a
community safe space party, please no drug, no alochol*
*We'll have non-alcoholic bar to
sell snack and soda*
Community Town
Hall Keynote Speaker
Kim Bobo - Executive Director
Interfaith Worker Justice
Kim founded Interfaith Worker Justice in 1996 and has since
provided leadership and vision for building the organization and the
movement for worker justice.
Prior to Interfaith Worker Justice, Kim was a trainer for the Midwest
Academy, and Director of Organizing for Bread
for the World. She writes a column for Religion
Dispatches, a new online magazine. She is co-author of Organizing
for Social Change, the best-selling organizing manual in the
country, and author of Lives Matter: A Handbook for Christian
Organizing. Her new book, Wage
Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid -
And What We Can Do About It, is the first and only book to
document the wage theft crisis in the nation and propose practical
solutions for addressing it.
Kim is the Choir Director at Good News Community Church, a
multi-cultural congregation in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago.
Kim and her husband, Stephen Coats, have twin teenage sons, Eric and
Benjamin.
Town Hall Cultural Festival Performers
BAGWIS
A collective of filipino cultural
workers, activists, and musicians who began writing and performing
original music in 1998 as a contribution to the first annual Kultural
Night of Resistance celebrating the centennial year of Philippine
Independance. Since then, Bagwis has composed several dozen pro-people
songs and participates in community building for our youth, women, artists
and migrante workers. BAGWIS music believes in THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE, in
seeking genuine freedom and democracy in the Philippines and in upholding
human rights. In creating & performing this kind of music, BAGWIS
hopes that it is contributing its humble share and effort in the overall
struggle for justice and social change. Web: http://www.bagwiscollective.org
Benefit After
Party Performer
ReadNex Poetry
Squad
Spoken Word Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtzBGzN7BV4
Meet the ReadNex Poetry Squad, a group of four spoken word
poets/emcees that have banded together to uplift urban communities through
the power of music. Comprised of 4 esteemed lyrical “scholars” and 1
DJ—Decora, Free Flowin, Cuttz, Latin Translator and DJ H2O have managed
to blend conscious social commentary with influences from Hip-Hop, Soul,
Latin and Caribbean music, to create a unique sound that is already making
an impact on not only the music industry, but the world.
The ReadNex have stuck to their commitment of being models
for change and continue to hold monthly campaigns that range from fighting
for the removal of U.S soldiers in Iraq to stopping the improper treatment
of women in today's society. Currently they are re-developing their Nex to
Read Program, a program geared towards helping today’s youth build their
confidence and self –esteem through the power of poetry. The program was
started in 2004, in Newburgh NY and is now being considered as an after
school curriculum all over the state of New York.
=================================================================
National Immigrant Solidarity Network
No Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights!
webpage: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org
e-mail: info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org
New York: (212)330-8172
Los Angeles: (213)403-0131
Washington D.C.: (202)595-8990
Chicago: (773)942-2268