The second annual Refugee Film Festival kicked off Sunday afternoon with Newcomb Theater’s screening of “Crossing Over,” a film which illustrates the different hardships immigrants face while making a life for themselves in the U.S.
“The focus of this year’s Refugee Film Festival is to show what the process of refugee resettlement is like, [and] the impact on these families and their traditional culture,” said fourth-year College student Simone Mendes, an intern at the U.Va. Center for International Studies and affiliate of the Latino Student Alliance. “Our aim is to provide another dimension of Charlottesville, which serves as a home for many refugees, and to shed light on the parts of the city not in the bubble that is U.Va.”
The festival ran through Tuesday, and was organized by the Center of International Studies, several student groups on Grounds and Codi Trigger, a UN Refugee Agency employee. The festival showcased two films a day, each followed by an interactive discussion.
“Crossing Over,” starring Harrison Ford and Ashley Judd, was a strong selection to start the festival, highlighting the troubles and issues of assimilation into American culture. The film features seven intertwining stories that highlight the struggle of illegal immigration to America. The stories follow characters from all corners of the world, including Iran, Korea, Mexico and New Zealand, allowing audiences to empathize with touching stories about paranoia, violence and insensitivity of the immigration system, which in turn causes families and relationships to deteriorate.
The film also explores how a host country’s cultural values, ideals, government officials and policies truly define the immigrant experience.
But the film’s major sticking point is its lazy reliance on ethnic stereotypes. Though they manage to create a visceral emotional journey, the filmmakers do not invest the requisite energy in developing each character’s identity.
The film also calls out some of the more shameful aspects of American culture, highlighting how racism impacts immigration policy — a Jewish man is granted the opportunity to attain official residential status while an adolescent girl of Muslim faith is deemed a potential terrorist.
The film is far from perfect, but it offers the viewer a better understanding of the true impact of America’s current immigration procedures. In the wake of the fiercely debated immigration bills floating around our legal system and the refugee spillovers in the Middle East, the film serves as a reminder that, politics aside, it is crucial to remember we are all humans.
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