Story
There is a war on immigrants being waged every day in our country, and not just along the southern border – we have become a Borderland, the border is everywhere and within every immigrant. A massive surveillance, militarized and carceral apparatus has been built to capture, detain and deport millions of immigrants. Conservative forces which seek to influence government policy have created a road map for the mass deportation of immigrants. This is a travesty and we need to shift public opinion to support a movement for policy reform that values the human rights and aspirations of immigrants, and welcomes the economic and cultural contributions they bring to our society. The protagonists of Borderland | The Line Within, all immigrants themselves, express these values while exposing the border industrial complex that provides the scaffolding for the war on immigrants.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT by Pamela Yates
There are more people migrating now than in the history of humanity.
BORDERLAND l The Line Within is a critique of my country’s cruel and inhumane treatment of people arriving in the U.S. It’s about the use of immigration as a gateway to fascist ideology and political power. Above all, BORDERLAND exposes the vast amount of our tax dollars – 25 billion in 2024 – given to corporate interests who make profits on the backs of the suffering of immigrants. I discovered that this insidious web has come to be known as the border industrial complex. Making this film would take 5 years,and it is now being shown world-wide to meet this moment.
We are living in dangerous times. Yet, even in the darkest hour there are always people finding a path forward. While making BORDERLAND, I sought out visionaries who propose solutions, leaders who speak from their own lived experiences to guide us through their lives and speak of new ideas. Immigrants all, their courage is contagious.
Gabriela Castañeda is the first person you meet in BORDERLAND. She comes out fighting and never retreats an inch. Fiercely intelligent, and an accomplished speaker, she builds leadership among immigrant women through intensive training. When she meets with recent arrivals she assures them, “I was just like you.” And then she takes them through what they need to know to defend their rights and help build a movement.
Kaxh Mura’l, was a protector of indigenous lands in his Maya-Ixil region of Guatemala, when he was repeatedly threatened with death by transnational mining interests. He fled his homeland and like thousands of others, began the dangerous journey to seek asylum in the U.S. Since he was in my previous film, “500 Years,” he contacted me upon leaving and I kept in touch offering whatever he needed to help keep him safe on this most dangerous journey. Kaxh is a beautiful writer and an important young leader. Together we could tell his story.
I found Alex Gil and the xpMethod group of digital humanists while doing research about creative ways people in the U.S. were contributing to a different way to welcome and care for immigrants here. These digital humanists–immigrants themselves–are PhD scholars who actively use their high level research skills and delve into digital technologies like artful data visualization to break down how the border industrial complex operates; how both Democrats and Republicans agree to fund its multi-billon dollar existence; what it means for immigrants who are being captured, incarcerated, deported, their families separated.
Along with editor Peter Kinoy, I set out to structure a multidisciplinary approach to this story, one that would tell personal stories yet address systemic problems and seek out systemic solutions. The overarching ideas of Alex Gil and the digital humanists would weave our stories together. I filmed the digital humanists in a liminal space, a place that could be anywhere and everywhere. This mise-en-scene adds intrigue and a touch of subversion to their innovative ideas exposing on the one hand, federal spending and repressive actions – like massive deportations – and on the other, offer forward thinking solutions.
Gabriela Castañeda’s and Kaxh Mura’l’s stories include coming up against the Kafka-esque immigration system. I asked them to go beyond as they describe, then demonstrate their evolution into becoming outspoken leaders. Risking everything, they are actively organizing for immigrant rights, building a movement in the shadow of the border industrial complex. They are the ones finding a way forward.
Never has my work as a human rights defender and documentary filmmaker come together so closely nor been so demanding. Never had I had to depend so strongly on the collaboration of the protagonists to film and tell their stories. When Kaxh arrived in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, I got him a pro bono lawyer just across the border in El Paso who could travel back and forth and represent him. I acted as a kind of paralegal to the lawyer, Carlos Spector, doing research, gathering documentation, creating background briefs about Guatemala to argue the case in court, and writing an affidavit for Kaxh as well as his traveling companion Francisco Chávez.
I knew I had to be completely transparent about my involvement, how the filmmaker helped shape the story. I did it through sparse narration, and Kaxh’s harrowing WhatsApp voice messaging back and forth with me. I recorded so many dramatic zooms with Gabriela. One emotional conversation begins the story. We laid bare the process of making the film. We broke down the 4th wall, something I’ve experimented with in all my films.
Together with Juan Hernández, the cinematographer who lives in northern Mexico and who is best known for lensing feature films, we devised a look that made the most of the anamorphic widescreen format for a more epic feel, as we wove complicated stories together using only prime lenses. I wanted to capture the majesty and terror of the landscapes, the border wall scar, the excitement of creating power in numbers as immigrants formed networks across the country.
With film festivals being increasingly risk averse and dominated by corporate sponsorship, with film distributors largely buying only crowd pleasing, celebrity driven, true crime laden, music entertaining documentaries, Producer Paco de Onís and I have gone back to the future, doing what we’ve always done: connecting the film and its protagonists with audiences. We create a virtuous cycle between the film and social movements, each strengthening the other. Since September 2024 we opened the film in more than 50 US cities, and offered a free “host a screening” option so that organizers could show the film, activate audiences, and raise funds for their work.
What have we learned from audiences after watching BORDERLAND? That they are surprised and pleased to see immigrants as leaders with agency. They always ask, “What can we do?” And as Gabriela Castañeda says in the film, “We don’t need saviors, we need allies.” What we can do is create collective solidarity. Because only together can we envision the change we can work to make.
