Selected Immigration Films

Illustrates the impact of 1996 immigration laws. Through intimate portraits of legal residents and asylum seekers, and shocking footage of their treatment behind bars, this video reveals the truths behind the current anti-immigrant sentiment and the multimillion dollar prison industry's profit from this legislation.

Videodisc.
Originally produced as a motion picture in 2006.
"Looks at the hotly-debated issue of illegal immigration as captured at America's current flashpoint: the Arizona border... Unveils the complicated dilemmas presented by the border crisis and the surprising political stances people take when immigration and border policy fails everyone, on all fronts" --Container.

Videodisc.
Originally produced as a motion picture in 2002.
Nigerian exile Okwe and Turkish chambermaid Senay toil at a west London hotel that is full of illegal activity. Late one night Okwe makes a shocking discovery, which creates an impossible dilemma and tests the limits of all they know.

Originally released as a documentary motion picture in 2003 on television program P.O.V., Point of View on PBS.
Special features include director's outtakes, links to PBS online resources, and information on the affiliates of this production.

Documentary film about the next group of immigrants, the Mexicans, that are following in our long history of immigration. It looks at the people of Farmingville, New York, and at how they are dealing with the influx of about 1,500 Mexican workers.

Videodisc.
Presents the plight of young, male Sudanese refugees, known as "lost boys," being displaced to foreign countries due to civil war in their homeland. The film tells the story of three of the lost boys who struggled to come to the United States for a better life, while still attempting to assist the family and friends they have left behind.

Videodisc.

Walt Kowalski is a widower who holds onto his prejudices despite the changes in his Michigan neighborhood and the world around him. Walt is a grumpy, tough-minded, unhappy old man, who can't get along with either his kids or his neighbors. He is a Korean War veteran whose prize possession is a 1972 Gran Torino he keeps in mint condition. When his neighbor, Thao, a young Hmong teenager, becomes pressured by his gang member cousin to steal Walt's Gran Torino, Kowalski sets out to reform the youth. Drawn against his will into the life of Thao's family, Walt is soon taking steps to protect them from the gangs that infest their neighborhood.

2 videodiscs (97 min.)
Originally produced as a motion picture in 1995.

Saïd is an Arab, Hubert is black, and Vinz is a Jew, all of them young, unemployed and living in a dreary, troubled Paris suburb, largely inhabited by poor immigrant families. Each of them needs to vent the anger they feel about the police brutality that landed another friend in the hospital. The film focuses on one day in the lives of these three hoodlum friends and the result is a brutal, harrowing study of the cyclical nature of violence.
Technical Details
DVD ; Region 1 ; NTSC.

One videodisc.

The video portrays 3 immigrant men who arrived in the United States as refugees from Cambodia in the '80s. After fleeing the Khmer Rouge and settling in Seattle as children, each was drawn into gang life, and ultimately jail. According to U.S. law they should have been deported, but Cambodia did not accept deportees at the time of their sentences. After September 2001, the U.S. pressured Cambodia into changing its policy. As a result, thousands of individuals were separated from their families and returned to a land that many barely knew. Many deportees faced the prospect of paying a double penalty: having already served their original prison sentences and moved on with their lives, they now faced deportation.

One videodisc
A Chinese man who travels to America to see his divorced daughter remarry cannot complete his journey when he realizes a generational and geographical divide has developed between them.

One videodisc.

A disaffected college professor develops a friendship with two illegal immigrants.