"Shelter" short film

Synopsis:

Multi-media source “SHELTER” is a short film with audio in Spanish that offers the perspective and lived experiences of immigrants and refugees from Central America. It explores how migrants and asylum seekers in Honduras and Guatemala are often forced to flee their homes and head North towards Mexico and the U.S. for the economic prosperity of their families and safety from familial and gang violence. The Rio Suchiate river divides Mexico and Guatemala, those who cross this river for work everyday operate in a transnational physical reality. A mixture of pain and hope can be seen and heard in the voices of the shelter workers and occupants, when discussing the Rio Suchiate there is hope for a borderless world similar to the one the river provides.

Justification:

This 14-minute short film by Matthew K. Firpo is a great resource to witness the lived experienced of migrants and refugees from Central America in their own words. By relying on the Rio Suchiate river as a “borderless” bridging mechanism, Guatemalan and Mexican people operate within a transnational world on daily basis and can be viewed as a model for transnational feminists to better understand the nuanced alternative structures of livelihood that these communities have engineered in response to the overwhelming amount of migrants and refugees who are refused at the border or deported after immigrating North to Mexico.

URL/Link: https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2018/08/30/shelter-human-stories-central-america/

Keywords: immigration, refugee, asylum, borderless, Central America

Author: Sage Lacerte