Trailer
Check out our trailer!
Why are we making this film?
When I began work on the script, my wife was a third grade teacher, and a child in her class recently had her father taken away and deported. It took weeks of building trust to find out why this girl, previously bright and engaged in class, was suddenly listless and prone to anger or tears at the slightest provocation. I interviewed her as part of my research. Her sadness, but also her bravery, hit me in the gut in a way that no headline or statistic ever could.
Immigration recently became one of the hottest topics with Obama’s executive action to stop the deportation of parents with US citizen children. Unfortunately this action has been blocked by a recent Supreme Court decision. The debate will reach fever pitch when the film is released in 2017, as the newly elected president has to decide whether to revoke the executive action. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of families continue to be forcibly separated every year. This film can be a focal point for those trying to understand the real families affected.
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Yoana (Ana de la Reguera) tries to call her daughter. Immigration detainees are not guaranteed a phone call, and some don't get one for weeks
Synopsis
When twelve-year-old Itan, straight-A-smart, comes home from school in San Francisco, she is stunned to find their furniture up-ended, and no trace of her mother Yoana. Child Protective Services dumps Itan and her six-year-old brother Neto with their estranged uncle Evencio, a big rig truck driver. Itan can't stand him. He's arrogant, unreliable, and probably criminal. After a desperate search, Itan locates Yoana in an immigration detention center in Arizona and convinces Evencio to take them there.
They are propelled onto the road in Evencio’s truck, through the maddening labyrinth of immigration detention. Itan fights to free her mother before she is deported. But her mother keeps slipping from her grasp, as she is transferred from prison to prison. Their journey takes them through the deserts of the southern border, to sprawling truck stops, border patrol offices and secret immigration prisons.
In the close quarters of Evencio's truck cab, Itan and Neto begin to bring a better man out of Evencio. But Evencio abandons them just when it seems they have a chance of stopping their mother's deportation. Are they now truly on their own? Or will Evencio come through and reunite the family?
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Itan and Neto find their apartment overturned and their mom missing
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Itan approaches an unlisted detention center. There are as many as 186 unlisted detention centers, where inmates are held without any public access.
The Cast and Crew
RICHARD LEVIEN (WRITER / DIRECTOR)
Richard Levien has been writing, directing and editing award-winning films for 11 years. Levien's short “Immersion”, about a ten-year-old boy from Mexico who struggles to fit in at his new school in the U.S., premiered at Slamdance in 2009. “Immersion” won the “No Violence” award at the Ann Arbor film festival, and Best Bay Area short at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF). The film received a Resolution of the California Legislature, and is used by more than 50 school districts and universities to support education about English Language Learners. In 2009 Levien won the inaugural San Francisco Film Society/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grant, for screenwriting on this film, Collisions. In 2013 the project won a further SFFS/KRF grant, for development.
Levien’s editing credits include “D Tour”, which won Best Bay Area documentary at SFIFF, and appeared on Independent Lens. He edited the documentary “A Fragile Trust”, which aired on Independent Lens in 2014. He is a member of the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Post Script team (doing motion graphics), which was nominated for a national Emmy in 2016.
Levien is from New Zealand. He has a PhD in theoretical physics from Princeton University.
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Richard Levien, Director
JESSE GARCIA (EVENCIO, PRODUCER)
Jesse Garcia is widely recognized for his role in the highly acclaimed film, "Quinceañera", which won the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and Official Selection for the 2006 Berlin Film Festival. Garcia's portrayal of Carlos, a young gay man who defies family expectations, has earned him an ALMA Award for outstanding lead actor in a feature length film.
Since then, he's accumulated over 50 credits as an actor, producer and recently as a writer/director. Some recent credits include 2012's summer blockbuster hit, "The Avengers", the Broadway stage production of "The Pee-wee Herman Show", as well as Robert Rodriguez and El Rey Network’s original hit series, "From Dusk Till Dawn".
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Jesse Garcia as Evencio
ANA DE LA REGUERA (YOANA)
Ana de la Reguera recently appeared in Netflix’s “Narcos” as Elisa, the leader of a communist revolutionary group in Columbia. She was a regular on “Eastbound & Down,” playing Vida, a singer romanced by Danny McBride in Mexico. She has also appeared on “The Blacklist,” “Anger Management” and the HBO Latin America prison drama “Capadocia.”
Her feature film credits include “Cowboys and Aliens,” “Cop Out,” “Nacho Libre” and “Ladies Night.” De la Reguera is a telenovela star, a staple on international magazine covers, and has been the face of CoverGirl and other major brands. She has won numerous awards as an actor on stage, TV, and film.
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Ana de la Reguera as Yoana
IZABELLA ALVAREZ (ITAN)
Izabella Alvarez has worked on several television shows, including Season 4 of "Shameless," Showtime's hit series, "Teachers," a new comedy on TVLand, as well as HBO's new series "Westworld".
Her role on "Westworld" led Izabella to work with prestigious actors, including Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, and Clifton Collins Jr. who plays her father, as well as top producers and writers including Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy, and J.J. Abrams.
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Izabella Alvarez as Itan
JASON GARCIA (NETO)
Jason Garcia is from Bryan, TX. He got the acting bug at the age of 7, when he began a yearlong workshop being trained by some of the best acting coaches out of LA. His first official film was Girlfriends Day, starring Bob Odenkirk, Natasha Lyonne, Amber Tamblyn and Ed Begley Jr., which is due to be aired later in 2016. He currently resides in Los Angeles.
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Jason Garcia as Neto
MALÍN ALEGRÍA (BASED ON A STORY BY)
Malín Alegría's novel “Estrella’s Quinceñera” was published by Simon & Schuster in 2006. Her second novel “Sofi Mendoza’s Guide to Getting Lost in Mexico” was released May 2007. Her short stories have appeared in the anthologies “Once Upon a Cuento,” and “15 Candles: 15 Tales of Taffeta, Hairspray, Drunk Uncles, and other Quinceañera Stories”.
“Estrella’s Quinceañera” was selected Bitch Media’s 100 YA books for Feminist Readers. Malin was also selected 2009 BEST New Authors to Watch and Read by Latinostories.com and in 2011 Malin was featured on NPR’s special series: 2 Languages, Many Voices, Latinos in the US. Currently, Malin's new series is called “Border Town” (released by Scholastic Inc. May 2012).
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Malín Alegría
VINCENT CORTEZ (PRODUCER)
“Collisions” is Cortez’s third feature as a producer, following “The Hush” and “Alarmed”. He was an associate producer on the indie favorite “East Side Sushi”, which won the audience award at Cinequest, CAAMFest, the San Francisco Bay Area International Latino Film Festival and San Francisco Indiefest.
Cortez was born, raised and is still based in the diverse Fruitvale community of Oakland CA. Cortez also teaches filmmaking to at-risk youth. He currently runs the production company Mitchell Street Pictures, working alongside his wife and producing partner, Sofia L. Cortez.
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Vincent Cortez, Producer
FRAZER BRADSHAW (PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY)
Oakland-based Director of Photography Frazer Bradshaw emerged from the world of visual arts, where his experiments with light and shadow - especially when combined with music - led to the production of several short films. His first short film as director, "Every Day Now," played at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. The year 1999 also marked the beginning of his lengthy career as a cinematographer for independent short films and features, including the 2010 documentary "Babies."
Bradshaw's debut as a feature director, "Everything Strange and New" (2010), with a unique visual style and lyrical approach to storytelling, was a favorite on the festival circuit. It premiered at Sundance in 2009, and earned the top prize at the 2009 Munich Film Festival. In 2011, it also received a nomination for Best First Feature from the Independent Spirit Awards.
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Frazer Bradshaw, Producer and Director of Photography
How will the film have an impact?
Many people may only be familiar with immigration from the headlines. Watching the film, they will experience, viscerally, a mother separated from her children. They will see the incredibly difficult human choices at the heart of all immigration stories. Others may be intimately familiar with the experiences portrayed in the film, but have rarely seen them reflected back in a realistic, unsentimental way.
We will target premiere film festivals to build buzz and secure distribution, and also directly approach studios like Pantelion. Just as we did with my short film “Immersion”, we will launch an aggressive education and outreach campaign, partnering with groups like Presente.org and TakePart.
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Itan and Evencio dance
Look and feel
Although it is a serious film about a serious issue, it borrows from the buddy movie and road movie genres. It is laced with the humor of a bad-tempered loner forced to share the cab of his truck with his upstart niece and her dreamy younger brother. The film is shot in the style of a modern-day western. From the big rig truck; to epic desert vistas; to the claustrophobia of immigration detention; this is a film that will feel epic in scope.
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The kids hurtle through the desert in Evencio's big rig truck
