Acclaimed, award-winning filmmakers Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra discuss the creation of their innovative, timely documentary. Winner of two awards at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, THE INFILTRATORS reconstructs the remarkable, inspiring story of a rag-tag group of activist youth—all Dreamers—who band together to wind up in one of America’s mysterious for-profit immigrant detention centers. From the inside, they plot ways to help protect the vulnerable detainees. Since the film’s release, some of the subjects have been targeted by ICE for deportation, in what has become a national news story.
The program is presented in conjunction with Beyond Borders, a series of art installations and events led by a collaboration between local organizations School for Advanced Research (SAR), SITE Santa Fe, and the CCA. De León spearheaded the Beyond Borders centerpiece, Hostile Terrain 94, an art installation featuring ~3,200 handwritten toe tags representing the migrants who have died trying to cross the Arizona/Mexico border. The installation will see a virtual opening online the Friday prior on July 17th.
Speakers
Alex Rivera’s ground-breaking Latino stories include the cyberpunk thriller Sleep Dealer, which won multiple awards at Sundance and The Infiltrators, which won both the Audience Award and the Innovator Award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and will be released theatrically in the U.S. in 2020. Rivera’s work has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the Tribeca Film Institute, the Open Society Institute, and many others.
Cristina Ibarra has been making award-winning films that explore the U.S.-Mexico border for the past seventeen years. The New York Times calls her documentary LAS MARTHAS “a striking alternative portrait of border-town life.” Her PBS documentary collaboration THE LAST CONQUISTADOR had a national broadcast on POV.