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El Paso’s border and immigration points are entrance and heart in a brand new documentary, “God Save Texas: La Frontera,” that can debut on HBO.
The documentary, directed by Austin-based and native El Pasoan Iliana Sosa, shall be proven at a premiere screening Friday, Feb. 23, on the Philanthropy Theater on the Plaza Theatre. Sosa will attend the free exhibiting. The screening shall be at 7 p.m. A Q&A will comply with.
The movie additionally will make its Sundance Film Festival debut and is a part of a trilogy. It will debut on HBO on Feb. 27. The movie and the opposite two — “God Saves Texas: The Price of Oil,” and “God Save Texas: Hometown Prison,” will stream on Max on Feb. 27.
Sosa, certainly one of three Texan filmmakers engaged on the assorted documentaries, returned to her native El Paso to inform the tales of the border. The different filmmakers went to Huntsville and Houston. The documentary trilogy is impressed by the e-book “God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State” by Lawrence Wright.
In a Zoom interview, Sosa stated she has achieved fiction work earlier than, however she finds herself drawn to documentaries and work that feels or is private.
“A lot of my recent work is documentary. I did a feature called “What We Leave Behind,” about my grandfather, who was a bracero and would frequently go from El Paso to Albuquerque but lived in Durango and Mexico. At the age of 89, he decided to build a house in Durango.”
In the brand new documentary, Sosa seems to be on the relationships alongside the border and the blurred edges the place first-generation immigrant kids straddle two cultures, in El Paso and Juárez.
“Where once immigrants were brought in as legal guest workers, now border policies and Covid regulations restrict the flow of traffic, impacting the lives of many families who live on opposite sides of the divide; recent gentrification further risks obliterating historic Mexican neighborhoods and lifestyles,” states the documentary launch.
“I love hearing people’s stories. I love the beauty that lies in everyday people’s stories. I grew up working class and I’m first generation Mexican-American. I am a daughter of immigrants and there is a lot of resilience there, alot of fortitude and I feel a lot of pride in that. Somehow, the stories that I have been telling as a documentarian, I feel very close to, so I find the stories empowering.”
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Sosa, additionally an assistant professor within the Film Department on the University of Texas in Austin, additionally feels that it’s a pivotal time within the state of Texas and within the nation to inform tales of immigrants and of these engaged on the bottom.
“I hope that people start looking at the Frontera and the border in a different way, not just black and white terms – that we are not all this or that. That we start having conversations in more depth and complexity and that people start waking up and realizing that we are pivotal. We have a lot of power in our words, stories and in our vote,” she stated.
The documentary reveals the fluidity between the 2 international locations and their distinctive hybridity. Among the tales and El Pasoans being featured are USA Today and former El Paso Times immigration reporter Lauren Villagran, sharing her expertise throughout the 2020 pandemic and the challenges of getting a associate who lived in Juárez. Also, Fernando Garcia and the Border Network for Human Rights are highlighted for his or her occasion “Hugs not Walls,” the place they facilitate the reunion of households with immigrants who can not cross the border.
The movie additionally contains Sosa’s mom, El Pasoan historian David Romo speaking concerning the bathtub riots, and the way pesticides had been used on braceros earlier than crossing into the United States, and former El Paso Times reporter Monica Ortiz Uribe who coated femicides in Juárez and talks concerning the day she was on the Walmart taking pictures in 2019.
“The film gives a complex portrait. I think it’s one that we can’t deny our history. It’s important to pay attention and also how has the city come together in times of like the Walmart shooting and the migrant crisis. It’s a complex portrait of a complicated city,” she stated.
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María Cortés González could also be reached at 915-546-6150; mcortes@elpasotimes.com, @EPTMaria on Twitter; eptmariacg on TikTok.
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