Giorgio Mangiamele is one of the most under-estimated figures in Australian cinema history. Soon after his arrival in Australia in 1952 as a migrant from Italy, he began making films at a time when feature film production in Australia was almost non-existent. His films were seldom seen in Australia and they have been virtually unavailable since. Displaying almost Quixotic ambition, Mangiameles first venture into production was a feature film, IL...

The body of an unidentified immigrant is found in the Arizona Desert. In an attempt to retrace his path and discover his story, director Marc Silver and Gael Garcia Bernal embed themselves among migrant travelers on their own mission to cross the border, providing rare insight into the human stories which are so often ignored in the immigration debate.

This is a hopeful story of the changing face of education in America. At White Center Heights Elementary School, located just south of Seattle, Washington, the students speak twenty-seven different languages and come from fifty different countries. Eighty percent of the students speak no English at home and ninety percent qualify for free or reduced lunch. As schools grow more diverse across the country, White Center Heights appears more as a window...

“Lost” 1984 documentary, rediscovered and restored, about Japanese men and women who, at the turn of the century, immigrated to the West Coast of the United States. These pioneers tell their own stories of struggles and triumphs in a new land. “‘Issei’ brings to vivid life the world of early Japanese immigrants in rural California. Infused with spirit and humor, this captivating film is a treasure.” - Valerie Matsumoto, Professor, History,...

Nostalghia is Andrei Tarkovsky's brooding late masterpiece, a darkly poetic vision of exile. It was the first of his features to be made outside of Russia, the home to which he would never return. Tarkovsky explained that in Russian the word "nostalghia" conveys "the love for your homeland and the melancholy that arises from being far away." This debilitating form of homesickness is embodied in the film by Andrei (Oleg Yankovsky, The Mirror), a Russian...

In this film whose title is a Senegalese proverb, a griot (story teller) traveling from Dakar to Brussels weaves a tale about African expatriates and offers a candid look at the life of African immigrants in Belgium. With Sotigui Kouyaté - a real life griot - as the story teller.

The Caretaker and The Mayor are two powerful short films that explore contemporary immigration issues in the U.S. through intimate portraits of relationships between recent immigrants, and those who came to the U.S. generations ago. The Caretaker is a short film about the relationship between an immigrant caretaker and an elderly woman in the last months of her life. Joesy, a Fijian immigrant, works long hours providing live-in care for 95-year-old...

Carved in Silence tells the story of Chinese immigrants who were detained at the United States Immigration Station at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay during the little known Chinese Exclusion era. The film examines the genesis of racially discriminatory immigration policies, its reality, and its consequences. Interviews are intercut with historical footage and dramatic re-enactments to powerfully translate the impact of public policies into human...

Just two years ago, the Torrez family looked a lot like many American families: Mexican-American with immigrant roots, multilingual and multicultural, working class with two kids in public schools getting a decent education, living in a mid-sized American city and weathering the economic downturn with any work the primary bread-winner could find. But in an instant, everything changed. After fourteen years of living undocumented in the U.S., Vanessa...

Europe's racial make-up is quickly changing. French-Algerian filmmaker Yamina Benguigui is hoping to start a conversation about affirmative action - a policy that does not exist in France today. Benguigui's Le Plafond de Verre (Glass Ceiling) presents a series of sometimes very emotional first-hand accounts of discrimination against mostly black and North African Arab who are trying to find jobs.