Films Dealing with Immigration and the Immigrant Experience
New NY Crossroads author, Vedat Akman, has compiled a list of movies relating to Immigration and the Immigrant Experience. We'll keep adding to this list as we find more information. Also, you can help us by sending us film titles you think fit into this category. The titles included here are accurate to the best of our knowledge. However, from time to time mistakes can be made. If you find any information that is incomplete or inaccurate, please let us know. We value your input and appreciate your partnership. You can send your e-mails to Info at New NY Crossroads. Thank you.
Films on Immigrants
Beginning with Charlie Chaplin's 1917 short film "The Immigrant", there's an entire genre of immigrant movies. Many of them are about nationless drifters - people transplanted into strange cultures, seekers, dreamers, and refugees. Immigrant movies are fascinating because they show people without the protection of a government most of us take for granted. British films have typically dwelled on South Asian immigrants, French films have focused on the large North African immigrant population, German films on Turkish immigrants and American films have focused on Hispanic and Asian immigrants. Here is a list for your enjoyment.
God Grew Tired of Us 2006
The film is a chronicle of three Sudanese refugees emigrating to America.
Human Trafficking 2005
Law enforcers commit themselves to stopping the enslavement of women and children
The City (La Ciudad) 2005
The Film is about four separate stories of immigrants and their experiences in the harsh realities of New York City as they try to make a living in the land of opportunities.
Spanglish 2004
A women and her daughter emigrate from Mexico for a better life in America, where they start working for a family where the patriarch is a newly celebrated chef with an insecure wife.
The Terminal 2004
An Eastern European immigrant in the United States (Tom Hanks) is forced to live permanently at an airport when his war-torn former country's borders are erased - voiding his passport and leaving him with no political home. The refugee meets and falls in love with a flight attendant (Catherine Zeta-Jones), which prompts a bold escape plan.
In America 2004
An Irish family, still suffering from the loss of their son Frankie, comes to America to make a living. The focus of the film is on the Sullivan family and their day to day struggle.
Dirt 2004
An illegal immigrant from El Salvador cleans wealthy people's homes in New York's upper echelon.
Maria Full of Grace 2004
A pregnant illegal immigrant Columbian girl becomes a drug mule.
Quinceanera 2006
The film looks at Hispanic family culture through the eyes of teenagers living in Los Angeles.
Head-On 2002
The film tells a stormy love story set among Turkish immigrants in Germany.
In This World 2002
The film tracks two young Afghans trying to reach Britain.
Dirty Pretty Things 2002
The film is set among exploited illegal immigrants in London.
Lilya 4-Ever 2002
The film tells the harrowing, if familiar, story of Eastern European girls who end up as prostitutes in the West.
Bend It Like Beckham 2002
The film is a feel-good story about a girls' soccer team.
Chaos 2001
Malika flees an arranged marriage but is then kidnapped and forced into prostitution.
East is East 1999
An immigrant family from Pakistan tries to raise their children in London.
Salut Cousin! 1996
The film is about two Algerian boys chasing their dreams.
Bye-Bye 1995
Karim Dridi follows two French-Arab boys through Marseille's underworld
Performing the Border 1999 Video, 42 min.
A video essay set in the Mexican-U.S. border town of Ciudad Juarez, where U.S. multinational corporations assemble electronic and digital equipment just across from El Paso, Texas. This imaginative, experimental work investigates the growing feminization of the global economy and its impact on Mexican women living and working in the area.
The #7 Train 1999 Video, 29 min.
The #7 Train follows the lives of four immigrant passengers and their conflicted relationships with the city: a Korean who works in a Harlem fish store, two Otavalen street vendors from Ecuador who work near Chinatown, and a Pakistani sari salesmen on Fifth Avenue.
Beautiful People 1999
Jasmin Dizdar views the Bosnian war through the eyes of both refugees and Britons.
Taxi-vala/Auto-biography 1994 Video, 49 min.
Taxi-vala explores the immigration experiences of Indian and Pakistani taxi drivers in New York City. Issues of limited professional opportunities, educational background, family and class are addressed.
The Great Pinoy Boxing Era 1994 Video, 30 min.
This documentary reveals contributions made by Filipino men who came to the United States during 1930's not only as farm laborers but aide boxing techniques and explores how the heroic efforts of these athletes united the Filipino-American community.
Bhaji on the Beach 1993
The film portrays the lives of Indian women in Britain
Nightsongs 1984 16mm., 116 min.
Nightsongs is the story of a Chinese immigrant family as seen through the eyes of their Chinese-Vietnamese cousin during her stay with them in New York City's Chinatown. An outsider among outsiders, the cousin finds work in a garment industry sweatshop. After work, she writes longingly and poetically in her journal of the husband and sons she had to leave behind in a Southeast Asian refugee camp.
Reminiscences of a Trip to Lithuania 1972 16mm, 90 min.
In this very personal film diary Jonas Mekas, avant-garde filmmaker and founder of Anthology Film Archives, journeys home to the Lithuanian village of his youth after a 25 year absence. Mekas speaks not only of the joy he feels in reconnecting to his family and friends, but of the pain of feeling eternally "displaced" both in Lithuania and in his adopted home, New York.
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Immigration Film Series
The Lower East Side Tenement Museum hosted its first Immigration Film Series at The Pioneer Theater. The series examined current immigrant labor issues and brought to light some of the obstacles facing new Americans today.
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The Pioneer Theater
155 East 3rd Street at Avenue A
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Lower East Side Tenement Museum
108 Orchard Street, NY NY 10002
212-431-0233
212-431-0714
Email: lestm@tenement.org