ESA? MEL?NDEZ’ TIMELY DOC, “Immigrant Nation!?The Battle for the Dream” won the audience choice award for best documentary at the Chicago Latino Film Festival, which concluded last Friday.
“Immigrant Nation!” follows the movement for immigration reform set off by federal anti-immigrant legislation in 2006, and activist Elvira Arellano’s internationally famous defiance of a deportation order.
“Immigrant Nation!” screens May 15 at the Loft Cinema in Tucson, Arizona, prompting Melendez to say, “I’m not going to take my papers, and will refuse to look white so I won’t get stopped.”
“Our role will be to take this story of struggle to the hearts of the people in Arizona and let them experience how an organized movement, with people of all colors and religions, stopped HR4437 back in 2006 and gave the Democratic Party the power in the House and Senate.”
Other CLFF winners were Javier Fuentes-Le?n’s “Undertow” from Peru for best fiction feature, and Chicagoan Ricardo Gamboa’s “The Southside has Many Beauty Queens” for best short.
See
