Student Stories from Undocumented America

Highly recommended by Educational Media Reviews Online (EMRO). Check out the Review!

Admissions DVD is available for educational institutions!

Bring Admissions to your campus Fall 2013!

Praise for Admissions

“Admissions provides fascinating insights into the shadowed lives of young adults who are American de facto if not de jure. Compelling at the emotional, intellectual, and visual level–this is a must see!”

Carola Suárez-Orozco, Co-Director, Institute for Immigrant Children & Youth, UCLA and author of Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society

“Admissions presents nuanced and personal insight into the issue of undocumented youths in the United States. … The film is powerful, revealing and most importantly human.”

Ricardo Miranda, Professor, Hunter College, and creator of Undocumented Drones (2011) 

“Admissions brings to the screen an overlooked, but much-needed contribution to the discourse on undocumented people in the US: the affective lives of college students. In its essayistic approach to the everyday emotional and visceral experiences of four young people and their desire for higher education, the film eschews the traditional documentary’s talking heads or temporal linearity. The film’s more poetic meditation on its subjects and their relation to the national body is deeply felt in its imagistic cutaways as much as it is seen and heard in its straightforward exposition. The students admit the filmmakers — and us — into their lives by telling their stories. Moods drift and shift, and so do the meanings of objects, location, and activism itself. Taking its cue from its subjects,Admissions is a brilliant un/documentary on the psychological textures and folds of undocumented students.”

Chuck Jackson, Associate Professor University of Houston – Downtown, Department of English and Coordinator, Film Studies minor

Abstract

Admissions delves into the inherent contradictions and psychological implications of undocumented students trapped at the intersection of education policy and broken immigration system. The stories of four students demonstrate both the dehumanizing effects of marginalization and their determination to receive a higher education. An experimental sound design, unsynchronized imagery, and a sophisticated metaphorical language are used to tell their poignant narratives—Jong Min discovering why he can’t find his green card, Viridiana buying fake papers with her mother, Chariles’s desire to study philosophy while picking strawberries, and Blanca’s identity crisis when she returns to Mexico speaking “like a gringa.” Admissions creates a space of dialogue and  create awareness of the complex issues of immigration, education and belonging.