Undocumedia: Humble Beginnings

Undocumedia: Humble Beginnings

With Jesús Iniguez, Nancy Meza and Stephanie Solis; moderated by Set Hernandez.

December 2011. In a Los Angeles conference room, a scrappy group of young adults were unknowingly making a dent in the course of cinema history. Made up of bloggers, videographers, technologists and artists, this unassuming bunch was brought together by their lived experience as undocumented immigrants and a shared goal to reclaim from the media ecosystem the narratives told about their lives. Thus came to be a team that would be known as UndocuMedia. 

As our newsfeeds are flooded with the terror undocumented immigrants justifiably experience right now, BlackStar presents an unprecedented conversation, bringing together this first wave of undocumented film practitioners from 2007 through 2012. In the face of political retaliation and a film industry that has actively excluded them, these makers offer perspectives for creating an alternative cinema tradition that could refresh the ways we understand filmmaking today.