Last week we discussed some of the South Asian participation in the immigration rallies that took place across the country. An SM tipster informs me that director Joseph Matthew, originally from Kerala, has a new documentary out called Crossing Arizona which highlights the tensions between various factions down at the U.S.-Mexico border.

CROSSING ARIZONA is an up-to-the-moment look at the hotly debated issues of illegal immigration and border security on the U.S./Mexico border.

Heightened security along the Texas and California borders funnels an estimated 4,500 illegal migrants, most traveling on foot, into remote sectors of the Arizona desert on a daily basis. The perilous journey, which can take up to four days, has led to the deaths of thousands of migrants.

The influx of migrants and rising death toll has elicited impassioned responses and complicated feelings about human rights, culture, class and national security. Through the eyes of frustrated ranchers, local activists, desperate migrants, and the Minutemen who’ve become darlings of the national media, CROSSING ARIZONA reveals the surprising political stances people take when immigration and border policy fails everyone. [Link]

I checked out the filmmaker’s blog as well (everyone has a blog now). Here was one audience member’s reaction to the film:

The Premiere [at Sundance] was a blast. The Q&A afterwards focused soley on the issues. And it was great to have three characters from the film there to shape the debate. Some Minutemen even showed up and we made sure they were able to get tickets to see the film. After the screening, a Minuteman wrote me: “It is, in fact, an utter disappointment that any honorable U.S. citizen would make such a film.”

He was concerned that the film was off-balance. Simcox himself said that he thought he was portrayed fairly and that the filmmakers allowed him to say everything he wanted to say. May I point out that, during the film, the audience meets multiple characters who have different takes on the situation: landowning ranchers who deal with the consequences of migrants crossing over their land, immigrant rights’ activists who feel that immigrants are being blamed for problems for which they are not responsible, undocumented (but tax-paying) migrant farmworkers, “samaritans,” “vigilantes,” migrants attempting to cross. [Link]

Roger Ebert chimed in after the film’s screening at Sundance as well:

But at Sundance you switch gears quickly. On the last day or two you hurry between screenings, trying to catch films everybody tells you not to miss. One I especially admired was “Crossing Arizona,” the story of how changes in the U.S. border patrol strategy has funneled illegal immigration toward the Sonoma Desert. More than 1,000 Mexicans have died of thirst in recent years, and we meet Native Americans who distribute bottles of water along immigration pathways. They also advise the immigrants to turn themselves in to the Border Patrol to save their lives.

The movie observes that illegal immigrant farm workers are crucial to the Arizona economy, and an American farmer says that without them the state’s agriculture would fail. We meet right-wing “Minute Men” who appoint themselves as unofficial border guards, fanned on by TV commentators like Bill O’Reilly, who says the North Koreans line their border with Red Army troops, and says he agrees with that approach. Meanwhile, Border Patrol agents consider the Minute Men dangerous bozos, and an Indian pastor finds that someone has slashed open the plastic bottles of water he leaves in the desert. [Link]

Here is a trailer for the film which is playing in the SF Bay Area this week.