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: 3/2 large brick home, with large shop on 1 ac corner lot. $259,900. See pics @ or 576-4069.
Certain phrases remain digesting in the mind. Perhaps that is why we call them sound bites. “Worst case of human smuggling in U.S. history… 19 dead … among the victims a child and a man in his eighties…” That last detail astonished me and broke my heart. The child had no choice in his destiny, but why would a man in his 80s — who had already lived his life — bother to risk such a perilous journey? What in the United States waited for him, so late into his years?
Amid the horror was an equally haunting image — an overhead helicopter shot of the tractor-trailer abandoned on the side of the road. A filmmaker and journalist, I recognized this media image as iconic. Disturbing in its disembodied view, yet also abstract in its distancing effect, its power would not go away. I struggled to make sense of this tragedy. As an artist, I knew immediately I had to respond to this event.
Though I grew up on the border, I am rarely drawn to border issues as a topic for my work. My films have included stories about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, 9/11, and Selena. But one common theme in my work is trauma — individual and collective — and how the memory of such events has an impact on a culture. And so, “19: Victoria, Texas” became a memorial to the 19 dead. In a highly polarized debate too easy to treat in an abstract and distancing way, I wanted to recognize the dignity of an invisible population. I also wanted to use my knowledge of cinema to create a very personal journey for the viewer, one that would create an experience of empathy, regardless of pre-existing opinions on illegal immigration.
It took me three years to finish my four-minute film. During that time, the debate literally hardened with talk of a border wall. “19: Victoria, Texas” found an international audience I never imagined, and the story continued to be told through other artists, including Brooklyn filmmaker Cary Fukunaga, who won a student Academy Award for his short “Victoria para Chino.” For artists such as Fukunaga and myself, this is what we do. We witness and we create. Once released into the world, that vision becomes autonomous, a cultural mirror for our society to reflect upon. This is the truth and power of art.
Ironically, while my piece has traveled the world, it has played very little in Texas. Its rejection by several film festivals in my own home state made me acutely aware of the political implications of the work, and how the piece can be interpreted — even co-opted — by people with very strong opinions on the debate.
One online reader of the Victoria Advocate even went so far as to state I was no better than a coyote, exploiting the deaths of these immigrants to make a profit.
The charge is sadly uninformed, for my type of filmmaking — the more experimental, fine-arts end of the spectrum — is hardly commercially viable.
Insulting in its lack of imagination, this kind of rhetoric was exactly behind my desire to humanize the illegal immigration issue in the first place. For while I am sympathetic to the situation of undocumented workers, I also recognize the immense complexity of the issue. As an artist, I can only respond in the best way I know how — through creativity and compassion.
Up to this point, the film has only been accessible to the public through film festivals and community screenings, where darkened rooms and stereo speakers can create the full intended effect.
I have not put it on YouTube or elsewhere on the Internet because I believe the piece would lose its power when played on a small computer monitor. But when the Victoria Advocate invited me to post the film on its site, I could not refuse.
Five years later, as this community continues to work through the impact of the event, I am honored my film has been integrated into the discussion. I welcome the ongoing exchange.
Dolissa Medina is a journalist and independent filmmaker living in La Jolla, Calif.