BORDER SOUTH (FRONTERA SUR)

North American Premiere

Director Raúl O. Paz Pastrana and producer Cecilia Giron Perez in attendance

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants, mostly from Central America, pass through Mexico every year on their way to the U.S. southern border. To stem the immigration tide, Mexico and the U.S. collaborate to crack down on migrants, forcing them into ever more dangerous territory.

Filmmaker Raúl O. Paz Pastrana spent four years following migrant routes from southern Mexico to the U.S.-Mexico border. The result is a close-up, nuanced and highly original view of the migrant experience, one fraught with risk and danger but also comradery, ingenuity and humor. Also profiled is the Undocumented Migration Project, an effort to collect and catalog artifacts left behind by migrants in the Arizona desert that speaks powerfully on behalf of those who seek a better life at an almost unbearable cost. –Ken Jacobson