Rebecca cammisa which way home

Although Mexican companies prohibit riders on freight trains, thousands board them anyway, making the rule impossible to enforce. Among the children featured in Which Way Home : Fito, year-old Honduran whose mother abandoned him when he was very young, lives with his impoverished grandmother, who has a job making cigars. He is traveling to the U. Yurico, a year-old Mexican who ran away from his mother, has lived on the streets of Tapachula, Chiapas since age seven.

Yurico proclaims that his life has been spent begging and sleeping on streets, thieving and abusing drugs; sometimes he makes money by washing buses at the city depot. Yurico wants a life free of drugs and violence, and is traveling to the U.

Jairo is a year-old Mexican whose father never accepted him. He has lived on the streets of Chiapas since his mother was killed a year ago.

Schooling is very important to him, but he cannot currently afford to continue his education. Support IDFA. Nederlands English. Individual giving Corporate giving Partner support Volunteers Advertising opportunities. Watch Which Way Home. Artboard Copy 2 Created with Sketch. Five percent of this large group of economic refugees consists of children under the age of Every day, hundreds of children climb onto the freight trains leaving the south of Mexico for the U.

During their journey, they can be robbed or raped, or fall from the train while they are sleeping. Those who survive this perilous journey then have to cross the heavily guarded border between Mexico and the United States. Despite all of this, the boys hardly seem aware of the dangers. If they do manage to get across, they try to earn a living or get adopted.

IDA : I think the pacing of that scene--again, in juxtaposition to everything that precedes it--is part of what makes it so powerful. Everything stops and there's just the bottomless grief to contend with.

RC : Well, the unsung heroes in documentary filmmaking are the editors, of course, most of whom never get talked about. I got to work with Pax Wassermann, who is extraordinary, and Madeleine Gavin is fantastic as well. I was very lucky to work with both of them. IDA : Who helped you bring your team together? Every element of the film is superbly executed. RC: That's one of the many great things about working with Mr. They're filmmakers, too; they're creative thinkers.

They had a lot of ideas about whom to bring on board for graphics, composers, title and sound design. They would come and sit in on the edit. I benefited greatly from their expertise. They've been making films a lot longer than I have. Whenever they made suggestions about people, it usually worked out really, really well. Madeleine cut the opening and started early on in the project, but had to move on to something else, making it necessary for us to find a full-time editor.

Pax mentioned a composer, as did Mr. Mudd, so we were able to work with both James Lavino and Alberto Iglesias. In terms of finding the Mexican crew, they were found by me going down there and meeting people at the beginning of this whole process. One person in particular who was so instrumental in Mexico was Alejandra Liceaga. I was also fortunate to be down there on a Fulbright scholarship. It helps to have something like that; it legitimizes you when you're dealing with bureaucracies or government agencies.

It gives credibility to your project. But you also need someone who knows the area, knows the people down there and how things work, makes meetings and gatherings possible, creates the access you need; Alejandra did that beautifully.

A lot of the success of laying the groundwork in Mexico was due to her work, and she knows how grateful I am. And, as I spoke about before, I had not only great cinematographers in Lorenzo and Eric; they were also great field producers. Even the drivers were fantastic, since they had to shadow us wherever we went and were totally reliable and provided safety and other things we needed along the way. Everyone's contribution was so important. Yes, I produced and directed the film, but it was a collaboration and that collaboration has made it the film that it is.

IDA : This is such a vital topic right now in this country. The current laws have been devastating for hundreds of thousands of US immigrants in the last decade. RC : Immigration is such a many-tentacled issue, with so many interesting stories and angles. This isn't the kind of film that you just make and leave behind and move on to something else right away. There is a huge outreach push that must go along with it. We want this to be used as a tool for immigration reform.

The US Embassy in Mexico wants to create border tours for officials, and we want to get it to more Mexican officials throughout Latin America, many of whom are working towards reform. Of course, we want the Obamas to see it, particularly their immigration policy people.