Events
States of Migration
Film Series
November 12 – December 13, 2021
Inequalities and violence across the Americas continue to propel people from their lands in search of safety in new homes and foreign countries. In that journey toward asylum, however, migrants and refugees face increasingly punitive state regimes. Instead of welcome, they experience entrapment, detention, and deportation. Nation-states from Chile to Canada target migrants: they restrict mobility, terrorize communities, and violate human rights. Once settled in a new country, migrants not only face state discipline, but must confront strident xenophobia and racism in their communities. Many are forced once again to undertake a perilous journey toward the promise of a better home.
This series of powerful short and feature films, curated by the Hemispheric Institute, seeks to center stories of migration and expulsion from the Americas. These are tales of harrowing journeys, desperate measures, deep solidarities, and courageous political action. Filmmakers reveal not only the degradations perpetrated by nation-states and their border regimes, but also the tenacity of people who imagine life beyond their reality.
1
Week One
November 12-15
Title: |
The Journey of Monalisa |
Release Date: | 2019 |
Runtime: | 93 minutes |
Director: | Nicole Costa |
Language: | Spanish with English subtitles |
Countries: | Chile, United States |
Synopsis: | Chilean-born performer and writer Iván Monalisa fully embraces his/her dual selves: scrappy, masculine Iván as well as diva, travesti sex-worker Monalisa. A reunion with filmmaker Nicole Costa, Iván's former college classmate, provides the opportunity for a journey through this undocumented transgender immigrant's daily life of sex, drugs, and poetry—as well as a quest for US legalization. Pragmatic and humorous, Iván Monalisa navigates the gritty underbelly of New York City with charisma and charm. Nicole Costa intersperses recent scenes of Monalisa's attempts to get a visa and their first successes as a writer with old VHS footage, snippets of telephone conversations, and extracts from their work: beautiful, raw pieces about life and survival in New York. |
Director Bio: | Nicole Costa is a Chilean actress, filmmaker, and producer based in New York with a career spanning more than 15 years. She received her Bachelor in Dramatic Arts from the University of Chile in 1997. She moved to Spain to study Audiovisual Communication at the Complutense University of Madrid in 1998. Her debut as a director for her short film Danger & Alone, co-directed with Mary Monahan in 2018, premiered at the Santiago International Film Festival (SANFIC). Her first feature documentary film, The Journey of Monalisa, premiered at the Valdivia International Film Festival in 2019 and has been selected by many international film festivals and won several awards. |