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Ask the Filmmaker | General Discussion  Andrew Needham, MA From my own experiences I know just how influential a filmmaking experience can be, especially because the perspective behind a lens can mean so much. In what ways have your own ideas or perspective on immagration issues changed since the completion of the film? kev inspiration & influences What inspired you to make such a film? Any particular filmmaker who influenced you? I loved the film, it was direct and honest and I don't know any other way to say it but it had a very artistic ambiance. I did not feel like it was cheap melodrama shown for ratings, but to tell an interesting story which so many films currently fail to do. How were you able to balance this, since so many filmakers have such difficulty with certain topics? What kept you rooted to such honest and elegant filmaking? I realize I've asked many questions but is that not what a good film is supposed to do raise questions? I particulary enjoyed the one about the guy who gets lost buying groceries. I, the son of Mexican immigrants, went to visit Mexico City for the first time years ago and I too got lost on my way to buy pan dulce(pastries). Thank you. Dear Kev, Thank you for your letter and your thoughtful questions. You asked about inspiration, but it is never easy to take apart all the experiences that we carry with us in life. What I can say is that when I first began to make the film I knew very little about the world of the new Latin American immigrant in New York City. My starting point was the fact that we are living in a period of history marked by profound uprootedness. In every part of the planet a great dislocation is underway. The world financial institutions describe the process as globalization, and they celebrate the new era without addressing the desperation that underpins every new gain in the market. During the past two decades more people have been forced to leave their homes than in any other period of human history. As a result, the immigrant worker is today no longer a marginal character, but has become the central subject of our time. Yet strangely, the immigrants themselves remain invisible, denied the chance to speak and to tell the stories of their lives. In making 'La Ciudad', I hoped to give some of the Latin Americans living in New York the chance to express what it feels like to be themselves. It was of course a long journey for all of us. For me, because I needed to learn from them what their lives are like, to learn the language, and the feelings, of uprootedness. And for them, because they had to step out of the shadows of the city, and accept to step into the light. Many thanks, David MRS.Serrano CSerrano527@aol.com Beautiful film "La Ciudad" was one of the most beautiful films I have seen. It will continue to touch me for a very long time. I am a third generation Polish American, married to a Mexican "illegal". We have had to struggle with many issues. Your movie helped me to feel inspired to be more patient with him and his ties to his family and ways of thinking. " La Ciudad" was a pure work of Art!!!! Dear Mrs. Serrano, Thank you for your lovely note. There is nothing more that I could have hoped for when I set out to make this film. My best to you and your family. David Malina Cordoza Trust Mr. Riker, I admire what you have done, especially how you have included the Latino people in the creation of your scripts. I read in your interview that you gave coffee to the men on the streets who were waiting for day jobs. How long did it take for them to trust you and to participate? I would think that they may not have been open to a "gringo" approaching them about making a film that was supposed to be about their lives. Was this very difficult for you? Are you pleased with the results? Thank you. Malina Dear Malina, Thank you for your note. The question you've asked goes to the very heart of the film: Was it difficult to build trust? I believe it always is. To begin with, people generally have good reasons to mistrust filmmakers. In countless ways, our stories have been misrepresented, offended, or ignored by film and television. The damage is everywhere to be seen. But more than this, many of those whose stories are told in La Ciudad live in this country with a constant and overwhelming sense of fear. This is the consequence of a system that welcomes their labor but refuses to grant them the rights of citizenship. As a result, many immigrants are forced to live in the shadows of official society, careful not to be seen or heard for fear of deportation. It is as if there exists an unwritten rule that says, you must be silent and invisible. Because of this, it is all the more difficult to invite the immigrant community to participate in such a film, asking them, in effect, to step into the light and begin to speak. The film took six years to make, and throughout this time I had constantly to be building trust. I had to demonstrate with each new person I met that I could be trusted, and that the film could offer them a safe place to tell their story. Certainly, the fact that I appear to be a gringo made this more difficult for some people. But I don't believe that this was the most important factor. As an example, I might mention one experience during the casting process for "Seamstress". At the time, I was working with a grassroots garment workers' organization made up entirely of Latin American garment workers. We decided that the best way to involve more garment workers in the film would be to make leaflets and distribute them at the end of the day in the garment district. Over the course of six weeks, we distributed 40,000 leaflets. That is, a group of perhaps twenty immigrant garment workers distributed these leaflets every day after work, explaining to their fellow workers the nature of the film and inviting them to participate. Latin American immigrants talking with Latin American immigrants. On the day of auditions, we honestly expected hundreds of new faces to arrive as a result of our efforts. But from the 40,000 leaflets handed out, only one garment worker showed up. Forty thousand immigrants had taken the leaflet home and decided not to come. The reason was simply fear, and it seemed to matter little that they were being invited by men and women who worked in the same factories with them, spoke the same language, and had travelled the same difficlut journeys. In the end, I feel a great respect for the hundreds of immigrants who did decide to participate. And I came to understand that each one of them, before committing to the project, had to make the very courageous and difficult decision to say 'Enough! I refuse to be silent and invisible any more.' The film in the deepest sense belongs to them. Thanks once again for your note, David john ciminello pjcim@cds.com La Ciudad David Riker - The villages are almost empty of people. They have moved to the city for survival, livlihood, expectation of a new life and support for those who are left behind. Yet, even the women and the children are gone. Only the old ones remain. And what do these people find in the city? A world that abuses and grinds down their spirits, sucks out their indigenous soul and leaves them stripped of dignity and self-worth. Perhaps the compulsion that makes people leave the village for the city has occurred for a thousand years, maybe its endemic to indutrial capitalism, or maybe history doesn't really matter since we hardly learn from it anyway. So what's my question? If the essence is heart, then the question is whether we will ever learn to treat each other with respect. Dear John, I'm not sure how to reply to your note, except to say that I appreciate the spirit in which you wrote it. Like you, I see the immigrant as an active mover of history, not as a victim. I've learned this in New York City, and in working the past few years along the US-Mexico border. The immigrant worker is the engine of the new globalization and has refused to accept a fate drawn up in the boardrooms of the world's financial institutions. For this and many other reasons, the immigrant worker demands our respect. Thank you for your note David Karen silogdogone@yahoo.com What's happenned to the actors since? I heard that some of the actors from this film have been forced to return to their countries. Is that true? Dear Karen, It is true. The woman from the love story, Maria, was arrested in an immigration raid at the sweatshop where she worked shortly after we completed filming. She was taken to a private immigration jail nearly twelve hours outside New York City in western Pennsylvania. It took eleven days for her family to get her out. She was then given thirty days to leave the country under an agreement called 'voluntary departure.' Maria's experience is not unusual. Every undocumented immigrant in this country lives with the fear of deportation. Often, the immigration raid occurs at the very moment that the immigrants are beginning to organize for better conditions at their workplace. Once arrested, the immigrant often faces a terrifying journey through the complex of police jails and prisons. In Maria's case, she was transported to the immigration detention center with a van full of women, all of them handcuffed, for the twelve hour drive to York, Pennsylvania. She described that at about midnight, the two men driving the van pulled in to a gas station to get something to eat. They brought out their hamburgers and soft drinks and ate standing near the front of the van, the stereo blaring music from the doors, and over a loudspeaker in the back. Inside, some of the women were so frightened that they could not stop crying. None of them were given anything to eat or drink until long after they had been processed at the jail the next day. If family or friends are not able to hire a lawyer or post bond, the immigrant is usually deported to their country of origin and left at the airport without having the chance to get their belongings or let people know what has happened to them. Often the airports are hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of miles from their homes. There, with no money and no possessions, they face the difficult journey back to their village or town. Maria is fortunate. Her family was able to post bond, and she had time to say goodbye before returning to Mexico. She is now working in a plastics factory, and at night is studying to become a hairdresser. Thank you for your note. David Jamie Spotiswood What's next? Dear David Riker, Your film was incredible and insightful. It opened up my thinking and softened my views. Are you going to do anything futher on this subject? Thank you. Jamie Dear Jamie, Thank you for your letter. It is not often that someone expresses with such directness and honesty that a film has 'opened up' their thinking. I'm currently working on a new film called 'Border Lives,' which is set on the US-Mexico border and examines the unique cultural world of that third country between Mexico and the United States. I was drawn to the subject because so many of the immigrant workers in 'The City' spoke about their journey Francey Ackerman-Edelen franceycate@hotmail.com ideas for further study Dear Mr. Riker: I was incredibly moved by your film. I am a master's student working on my thesis, which is about training Mexican immigrants in the US workforce. I am going for a PHD in sociology and plan to continue my study of Latinos and their families. Based on your findings, can you recommend some ideas for further research? Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Francey Ackerman-Edelen Bowling Green State Univ Dear Francey, Thank you for your letter and your commitment to better understanding the contemporary experience of Latin American immigrants. My apologies for this slow reply. I must first tell you that my own background is not academic, and I feel somewhat unqualified to give you the thoughtful answer you deserve. In my own experience of working with the immigrant community in New York City, I have learned a number of issues which I think are fundamental. First, that the most painful struggle the immigrant faces is often not the daily struggle for survival, but the deeper and far more complex struggle of living between two worlds. I chose to dramatize this in several ways in the film, but perhaps the clearest example is the story of the garment worker whose greatest struggle relates to her condition as a long distance mother. The fact that vast numbers of immigrant families are forced to live apart is not only one aspect of the new globalization, but it also has profound personal and cultural implications. In thinking about the kind of research that such a study would require, it seems to me that we need to understand the experience from both the perspective of the immigrant and the person or family left behind. Equally important is the question of how the new immigrant builds community in the United States, in other words, makes this country a home, either permanent or temporary. This involves the question of what forms of community are being created here, which traditions are being transported and how, and what new organizations are being established. Finally, I believe that it would be important to research the consequences of silence and invisibility which are part of every undocumented immigrant workers daily experience. Certainly, there is considerable work being done to address this question as it affects immigrant workers efforts to organize and unionize. But there is a deeper aspect that needs to be understood. I hope that these observations, though quite simple, are of some use to you. All the best, David ramon jimenez cuen, ramon_jimenez_cuen@yahoo.com inmigrantes en NY David Riker: Because of a scolarship of the mexican goverment i'm a new student in NY at the International Center of Photography in the documentary program, i arrived two weeks ago. I saw your film, it is very touching. By the last two years i had been working in a documentary project in Oaxaca, Mexico where is my home, wife and son. The project is about kids who lives under a bridge, i start this project under the instruction of Mary Ellen Mark, one of the most important documetary photographers. I one to print a book about this work. I would like to work with mexican inmigrants in NY. My uncles use to be ilegal inmigrants ten years ago, i feel like them even my situation is very different. I'll apreciate your help to find information about mexicans inmigrants living in New York. I hope you can help me, best regards Dear Ramon, My apologies for being so long in answering your letter. I would love to help you to the extent I am able to and will send a note to your e-mail address. Best, David |
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