Children in No Man's Land
Every year, more and more children are immigrating to the United States without a parent or legal guardian. At any given time, an average of 700 unaccompanied minors are being detained by the US Department of Homeland Security Department. Some of these children come to the United States seeking asylum, others with the hope of being reunited with family members already living here, and all are simply in search of a better future for themselves. These children are driven by a strong survival instinct that assures them that the US is their last resource, their salvation. They are willing to risk it all for a chance at a new life. And they do.
Children in No Man's Land is a 40-minute documentary uncovering the plight of the 100,000 unaccompanied minors crossing the US/Mexico border every year. Focusing on the Arizona/Sonora Desert border area, this work takes an up-close-and-personal look at the stories behind both successful and unsuccessful border crossing attempts by Mexican children seeking to reunite with family in the US or in pursued of work and a better future.
Through a series of interviews conducted at shelters along the Mexican border, Children in No Man's Land gives a face and a voice to a situation that might be more complex and dangerous than any of us—and certainly the children involved—can imagine. We hear from the children themselves about why they embark in such a dangerous journey and what it's been like for them so far.
Trailer
Credits
Director/Producer/Cinematographer: Anayansi Prado
Executive Producers: Julia Parker Benello, Wendy Ettinger, Judith Helfand.
Cinematographers: Heather Courtney, Kevin Leadingham
Editor: Alejandro Valdes-Rochin
Composer: Robert F. Trucios
Running Time: 39 min.
Website: www.impactofilms.com/cinml
About the Filmmaker
An award-winning documentary filmmaker, ANAYANSI PRADO was born in Panama and moved to the United States as a teenager. She later attended Boston University where she received a BA in film. Her debut documentary, Maid in America, about the lives of Latina immigrant women working as domestic workers in Los Angeles, screened nationally on the PBS Independent Lens series and in over 40 film festivals in the US and around the world. Prado subsequently served as an executive producer on the Discovery en Español series Voces de Cambio, about humanitarian issues in the Latino community.
Children in No Man's Land is Prado's second documentary feature.
Prado has received a Rockefeller Media Fellowship and is the recipient of two Media Grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as well as grants from Creative Capital, the Paul Robeson Media Fund, Pacific Pioneer Fund, Independent Television Services (ITVS), The Fledgling Foundation, Chicken & Egg Pictures. She was named one of three up-and-coming Latina filmmakers in the United States by Latina Magazine.
Prado's company, Impacto Films, is geared toward the production of documentaries with a social impact. Continuing with her vision of film and visual arts as powerful tools for social impact, she recently founded The Impacto Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the empowerment of indigenous youths and their communities through hands-on training in photography, filmmaking and digital media.
Prado is currently in production of Give Us Your Retired, Your Rich, Your Americans, a documentary that explores the growing phenomenon of Americans retirees migrating to Latin America—specifically to Panama—and the effects and challenges faced by both the retirees and the local Panamanian communities in which they live.