11th Annual Immigration Film Fest

Welcome to the 2024 Immigration Film Fest! The Immigration Film Fest is hosted by KAMA DC, a volunteer-run nonprofit dedicated to providing a platform for immigrants and refugees in the DMV to share their skills and stories. Now in the festival's 11th year, we are bringing you a hybrid film festival with virtual screenings for 29 films via Eventive and four in-person screenings in Washington, DC from October 17-20

The screenings will be hosted at a variety of venues in downtown DC and each screening feature Q&A with film directors or other expert speakers.Welcome to the 2024 Immigration Film Fest, now organized by KAMA DC! This October we are bringing you a hybrid film festival with virtual screenings via Eventive.

Schedule:

Short Films: Migration and Memory

Remembering your home and roots is a crucial part of every individual's journey, and for immigrants, memory can bring complex emotions of nostalgia, grief, and connection. Join us at Edlavitch DCJCC to watch a collection of five short films that each touch on how memory plays an important role for immigrants and their communities. This lovely collection use film to explore how the memory of neighborhoods, of people who we have left behind, or lives we thought we might have, shape who we are across space and time. We'll hear from the directors of Catch the Moon, Schantelle Alonzo, and Mom, Darinka Arones, following the screening!

Schantelle Alonzo, known online as "Mishipiku", is a Filipina-American multidisciplinary artist and animator finding her roots in Chicago. With a 6-year background of making social justice theater with Albany Park Theater Project, she strives to tell stories of underrepresented communities and immigrants. Schantelle will be graduating from the School of Visual Arts with a BFA in Animation this spring and will be looking for exciting new projects to work on!

Darinka Arones is a Peruvian interdisciplinary artist based in New York City. She is pursuing a BFA in Film and TV with a minor in Studio Art at New York University. Darinka focuses on the directing, editing, and cinematography aspects of filmmaking.

Querido Pequeño Haiti

A love letter to a place that will forever be home, a visual ode, and a farewell to a neighborhood that is rapidly changing due to the forces of gentrification and Miami’s housing crisis.

a film is a goodbye that never ends

A woman awaiting her US visa befriends a dog named Turbo. When it’s time to part, she says goodbye the only way she knows how—she makes a movie.

Mom

For the first time after 17 years, a mom, Erika; and her daughter, Darinka, discuss about what it meant for Erika to leave Darinka at 3 years old––in order to migrate abroad in an undocumented status.

Catch the Moon

Javi's father has left for America to provide for the family. Javi grasps with his absence as he ponders the moon, pretending to catch it as his father once said he would do for him. The film is a testimony of hope as Javi copes with the distance from someone he loves.

Crossings

Crossings is a medium-length documentary that addresses the way in which migrant children and adolescents make sense of an experience they did not choose. Located in Chile, in their school space, they recall a journey full of challenges: the grief of leaving their homeland, the fear, loneliness and discrimination. At the same time, it shows how they have been able to adapt, what experiences have helped them and what they have learned. In this choral narrative, students of different ages reconstruct the memory of their longed-for home, while dreaming, playing and adapting to a foreign land. This documentary tries to bring a fresh and humane look at involuntary migration due to economic, political and humanitarian crises.

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