(Info from press release)
IMMIGRANT DOCUDRAMA BY CHIRLA LIBERTY FILMS COMES TO BOSTON WINNING GRAND JURY AND AUDIENCE AWARDS FROM DANCES WITH FILMS FESTIVAL (DWF 25)
America's Family, written and directed by Anike Tourse, is a narrative feature film inspired by real people and real events. The film tells the tale of the Diaz Family, a regular, immigrant American family, who on a fall morning receive a knock on the door from ICE agents suddenly shattering their lives. As each family member deals with a different fate, they discover reserves of love and faith to help them find a way to reunite.
CHIRLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, is the largest immigrant rights organization in California. CHIRLA Executive Director Angelica Salas, who is also the executive producer of America's Family, stated, "There is power to telling our stories from the perspective of those who live those experiences. Immigrants in the United States are making history every day but their extraordinary contributions and life stories are often disregarded as too ordinary to bring to the big screen. With ‘America's Family’ and with the team that made it possible—starting with the incredible talent of actor and filmmaker Anike Tourse, along with the fabulous cast and crew at Mixed Operations—we aim to touch America's hearts and minds and keep fighting until no family is torn apart by our cruel and unjust immigration laws."
Anike Tourse, America's Family writer, actor, and director, added, "I am extremely appreciative to Dances with Films for these two awards. Art has always been fundamental to the immigrant rights movement. This film shows the raw emotions of the people of this movement. This is why I believed and worked hard on this project. I wanted to make a film that tells a true immigration story and lets people connect emotionally across race, across nationality, and across borders. It's exciting to me that America's Family is doing that with audiences everywhere."
In 2007, CHIRLA Liberty Films produced Know Your Rights, which has been used in community education curricula across the country to show immigrants real-time situations in which they can protect themselves during ICE raids. In 2017 CHIRLA released America, I Too! a film short about three lives caught in the deportation pipeline that we took to the festival circuit, where it won five awards.Link to press materials here.
America's Family, a docudrama feature film by CHIRLA Liberty Films, screens next on Sunday, June 26, 2022 for its New England premiere in Boston as part of the Roxbury International Film Festival 2022, and is co-presented with ArtsEmerson, Boston Asian American Film Festival, and Boston Latino International Film Festival for the Shared Stories program. For more information, follow this link. Tickets can be purchased here.
