Browse films

Collisions

Richard Levien
United States, 2019, 82 min.

In English and Spanish with English subtitles.
This film is family friendly.

AIFF Award Winner:
Best Dramatic Feature

Twelve-year-old Itan's promising life in San Francisco is turned upside down when she comes home from school, with her younger brother, to find her apartment ransacked and her mother taken away by immigration police. Suddenly she must rely on her estranged uncle, a big rig truck driver. Itan manipulates him into taking them across the country in his truck, trying to find her mother and stop her deportation.

Director's Statement

When I began work on the script, my wife was a third grade teacher, and a child in her class recently had her father taken away and deported. It took weeks of building trust to find out why this girl, previously bright and engaged in class, was suddenly listless and prone to anger or tears at the slightest provocation. I interviewed her as part of my research. Her sadness, but also her bravery, hit me in the gut in a way that no headline or statistic ever could.

Category: Drama, Award Winner.
Themes: Family, Human Rights, Immigration, Mexican Culture, Relationships, Road Trip.