In this recorded version, there are still vestiges of the confrontational manner of a live performance—certain lines in the narration stick out that way, for better or for worse, like “this is not a white savior story, this is a white nightmare story,” or, with regards to Harper Lee’s original Mockingbird, “her [story] is liberal—mine is radical.”
CIFF INTERVIEW: DIRECTOR J.P. SNIADECKI, OF “EL MAR LA MAR”
The new film primarily displays landscape footage of the Sonoran desert, while the audio track features interviews with numerous figures that have experienced the location firsthand—including immigrants who had just crossed the border, as well as some patrolmen who consider it their job to stop them.
CIFF CAPSULE: “ABACUS — SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL”
The punchline to those lone criminal charges—as it’s told in this film by Hoop Dreams [1994] director Steve James—is that Abacus didn’t even contribute to the crisis.
CIFF CAPSULE: “MAINELAND”
While accommodating on a technical level, they meet the foreign students with typical condescension: signs for “English-only common spaces,” classes that begin with “so where are you from” conversations, that whole routine.
