“There’s a saying in Mexico, they call it pueblo chico, infierno grande—small town big hell…I was an easy target.” – Juan, an LGBTQ asylee from Mexico.
Waves of migrants are fleeing and traversing thousands of miles to plead for safety at the US-Mexico border. Every day, more arrive at the border with hopes that their asylum cases might be heard. Caught between hardline immigration policy and international humanitarian law, most migrants at the border end deported to a potentially lethal fate, while others wait in limbo in Mexico.
NO SEPARATE SURVIVAL is a participatory documentary film and community project that offers asylum seekers a chance to get behind the camera and share their perspectives as storytellers. What brought them to risk it all? What future do they dream about? What responsibility do we hold to each other across borders?
Contact us if you would like to organize a screening for your community, classroom or organization. We have teaching tools and amazing art and storytelling facilitators.
This film offers migrants a creative venue to reflect, dialogue and move towards healing. Facing displacement, asylum seekers are resettling in Mexico and the US. They face criminalization. They grapple with loss. They build community. A chance to tell their stories helps them open a door to healing. And it can help connect us to each other across borders through first-person narrative storytelling, art and animation.
