ABSTRACT
The film features various visual motifs including found footage, assemblage, documentary photography, and experimental film techniques such as hand-processing, optical printing, hand-conducted time-lapse, and under-the-camera animation in an effort to détourné and derail the various approaches to history-making. Text on screen takes on multiple roles, sometimes translating location audio, sometimes contradicting or augmenting the voiceover or image, and sometimes giving a Spanish translation of English voiceover. The film was conceived of and produced during a sociopolitical climate in the United States that has been increasingly anti-immigration and in particular has targeted Spanish-speaking populations for racial profiling. The function of the screen is only to distance the viewer but also to reinforce what film theorist Peter Gidal calls the “dialectic interaction” between the moviegoer and the film itself.
