Now Showing: FROM HERE a Film About U.S. & German Immigration at Virtual Human Rights Watch Film Festival Until June 20
FROM HERE A DOCUMENTARY FOCUSED ON U.S. AND GERMAN IMMIGRATION IS NOW SHOWING AT THE VIRTUAL HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL UNTIL JUNE 20
Shot in the U.S. and Germany, The Film Captures Four Young People Embroiled in a Fight for Belonging in an Era of Rising Nationalism.
The documentary FROM HERE, directed by Christina Antonakos-Wallace, is a hopeful story of four artists and activists based in Berlin and New York whose lives and futures hang in the balance of immigration and integration debates. The documentary is currently showing at the Virtual Human Rights Watch Film Festival in NY (HRWFF) until June 20.
To purchase tickets to FROM HERE go to https://ff.hrw.org/film/here?city=New%20York%20Digital%20Edition.
As the U.S. and Germany grapple with racism, nationalism and a fight against diversity, FROM HERE offers an intimate yet epic look at the stories of four children of immigrants Tania, Miman, Sonny and Akim, as they move from their 20s into their 30s and face major turning points in their lives: fighting for citizenship, starting families and finding room for creative expression. Filmed over a decade in two of the world’s largest centers of immigration, the sensitive and nuanced documentary captures their journeys as it seeks to define what it means to “belong” in societies that are increasingly hostile to people of color.
“Many things in my personal story drew me to make this film, including years of activism and some surprising firsthand encounters with xenophobia in Europe,” said Antonakos-Wallace. “Ultimately, these experiences led me to believe that to create the multiracial democracies we hope for, we need narratives that speak directly to the unspoken beliefs of who does and doesn’t belong. This is particularly true now as we are in the midst of urgent uprisings in support of racial justice and a pandemic which lays so many of the indignities of systemic racism bare.”
Production of FROM HERE spurred the development of the impact and engagement project, With Wings and Roots. The initiative, with collaborators in the U.S. and Germany, offers workshops, installations, educational curricula, panel discussions, and more. It hosts an content-rich interactive web platform where visitors can share their stories and learn about immigration history. Visit: https://withwingsandroots.org/
Photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/81q6vc989a180pj/AACG-EwyWu0vGgmKxp5S5x1Aa?dl=0
FROM HERE is a With Wings and Roots and Facet Films production. The film was directed and produced by Christina Antonakos-Wallace. Canan Turan is the creative producer, Amy Benson and Theresa Navarro are the co-producers, Aletta von Viettinghoff is the editor, (Elizabeth) Alex Guy is the composer and Chrystian Rodriguez is the Impact Producer & Education Director.
Christina Antonakos-Wallace, Director/Producer/Camera
Christina is a filmmaker and cultural organizer. Awards include the Euromedia Award for Culture & Diversity (2011), a Media that Matters Change Maker Award (2012), and recognition from the German Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance (2015). Holding screenings in a dozen countries–her work is shown in diverse contexts from Google Headquarters, to NGOs to film-festivals. Commissions and grants for her work include the New America Foundation, Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, and the German Ministry for Civic Education. She was a Fellow at Hedgebrook (2017) and the Port Townsend Film Festival (2015). With a BFA/BA from the New School & Parsons School of Design, she graduated with honors. Her work was recognized with a five-year MTV Fight For Your Rights Scholarship (2002) and a Humanity in Action Fellowship (2006), which she completed at the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, in Berlin. FROM HERE is a personal project that grew from questions of how to advance racial equity in an era of globalization, and the search for her own sense of belonging in the context of generational migration.
Amy Benson, Co-Producer
Amy owns Nonfiction Media, a production company based in Seattle where she produces, shoots and edits films telling the stories s trya organizations around the globe. Since 2008, Amy has been working on a doc trilogy about one family in Nepal. DRAWING THE TIGER, the first film, was a granted project of the Sundance Institute and premiered at Hot Docs in April 2015. It was awarded the Best Feature Jury prize by the Northwest Film Forum, the Documentary Feature Award from CAAM Fest, the Jury Award for the Best Documentary at the Asiatica Film Festival and the UNICEF award at Film South Asia. The sequel, THE ELDEST SON, premiered at the Kathmandu Mountain Film Festival in 2017. The final film, LITERATE is in production. Amy is a founding member of the Seattle Documentary Association is passionate about supporting filmmakers in their process.
Theresa Navarro, Co-Producer
Theresa is a Pinay cultural worker and Independent Spirit Award-nominated producer. Over the past decade, she has managed development, communications and public program initiatives for award-winning media arts organizations, including cause-marketing collaborations with Disney, HBO, Macy's, MTV, Toyota, and Verizon. Her independent producing credits include DAYLIGHT SAVINGS (SXSW '12), sports documentary 9-MAN (DOCNYC '14) and sci-fi feminist film ADVANTAGEOUS (SUNDANCE '15) which received a Special Jury Prize for collaborative vision. Theresa recently served as associate producer for the Emmy-nominated documentary series AMERICA REFRAMED on WORLD Channel and is currently vice president of external affairs at American Documentary, the producer of POV on PBS. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Theresa holds undergraduate degrees from the University of California at Riverside and completed her graduate work at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. She was nationally recognized as one of 15 Asian Pacific American Women Leaders for her work in the media arts in 2011.
About HRWFF
Through the Human Rights Watch Film Festival we bear witness to human rights violations and create a forum for courageous individuals on both sides of the lens to empower audiences with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a difference. The film festival brings human rights abuses to life through storytelling in a way that challenges each individual to engage and demand justice for all.
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