Award-Winning Documentary Film,
Crossing Arizona, Examining Illegal
Immigration to Screen April 12 at UCSD

March 27, 2007

By Jan Jennings

Crossing Arizona, a documentary film which examines both sides of the immigration debate in Arizona, will be screened at 5 p.m. April 12 in the Price Center Theater at the University of California, San Diego. A discussion with director/producer Dan DeVivo will follow the screening.

The event is part of UCSD’s monthlong celebration of the life and accomplishments of César E. Chávez, labor leader, champion of human rights and a principal figure in the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. The screening and discussion are free and open to the public.

Crossing Arizona was nominated Best Documentary at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. It is the winner of the One Future Prize 2006 at the Munich Film Festival, the Best Documentary at the Arizona International Film Festival, and audience awards at Cine Las Americas and the Brooklyn International Film Festival.

"The forced migration of thousands of men, women, and children caused by intolerable economic conditions in their country of origin is a massive humanitarian disaster,” said Jorge Mariscal, director of the UCSD Chicana/o-Latina/o Arts and Humanities Program. “This film comes at the issue from a variety of angles and should produce a better understanding of a problem that will be with us for decades to come."

Crossing Arizona explores the varied political, practical, and humanitarian stances of people directly involved in the Arizona immigration influx. It gives voice to the frustrated farmers who day after day repair fences and pick up trash; the humanitarians who place water stations in the desert; farmers who depend upon the illegal work force; political activists who rally against anti-migrant ballot initiatives, and the Minutemen, armed citizens who patrol the border.

It is estimated that 4,500 undocumented people try to cross the Southwest’s Sonoran Desert each day. Heightened security in California and Texas pushed the illegal border-crossers into the Arizona desert. The U.S. Border Patrol recorded 253 immigrant deaths in 2005 in Arizona.

Though the initial focus of the documentary was to cover the humanitarian crisis in Arizona, it evolved to include the political debate on immigration and, through the eyes of people with differing agendas, it cast a spotlight on the inadequacies of U.S. immigration policy in the region.

As Variety writes, Crossing Arizona is “deftly sustaining many points of view … in a complex, still-evolving debate.”

Director/producer DeVivo is a graduate of Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in social anthropology and a penchant toward independent documentary filmmaking. Based in New York City, he has worked on several projects including Counting on Democracy, We Are Family, and Refusing to Die: A Kenyan Story. His goal with Crossing Arizona has been to put a human face on the issue of immigration.

For further information on the Crossing Arizona screening e-mail Violeta Gonzales, a member of the 2007 César E. Chávez Celebration Planning Committee, at violetag@ucsd.edu or call the Cross-Cultural Center at (858) 534-9689.

 

Media Contacts: Pat JaCoby, 858-534-7404 and Jan Jennings, 858-822-1684