WORLD and American Documentary are pleased to announce the national broadcast premiere of Christina Antonakos-Wallace’s award-winning debut film, From Here, about children of immigrants challenging xenophobia and racism through their art and activism. The documentary will premiere Thursday, June 1, 2023, as part of the 10th season of America ReFramed, the Peabody award-winning documentary series. The film will also be available to stream for free at worldchannel.org until November 30, 2023.
From the epicenter of today's global migration debates, From Here follows four young artists and activists raised in the Global North by parents from the Global South and their fight to belong in an era of rising nationalism, echoing the phrase “Ni de aquí, ni de allá” (not from here or there). Beautifully shot from 2007 to 2019, the film captures their struggle to define belonging for themselves in societies increasingly hostile to their existence.
Since her family fled Bolivia when she was four years old, Tania Mattos lived in New York City without documentation. She worked nights in restaurants and full-time as an unpaid organizer because she realized nothing was going to change unless she (and her peers) put everything on the line. Over ten years, she and the other protagonists respond to the weighted question of “where are you from”, refusing to assimilate or allow themselves to be treated as outsiders in their own home.
Set between two of the world’s largest immigration countries–the U.S. and Germany–Christina Antonakos-Wallace interweaves the stories of Tania with three other children of immigrants: Miman, Sonny, and Akim, demonstrating the shared immigrant experience internationally. Miman Jasarovski, a German of Roma descent, lives as an outsider in the only country he has ever known. Sonny Singh, of the brass band Red Baraat, fights to maintain his Sikh identity in New York, where his turban makes him a target for harassment. Akim Nguyen arrived in Germany as a child refugee from Vietnam, an event that sparked his nomadic life as an artist, defiantly states “home is everywhere I am.”
The film's protagonists invite viewers to explore the bigger themes of migration and belonging beyond current headlines that stoke constant fear of the border. The filmmakers and participants developed the film as part of the educational initiative With Wings and Roots and with the support of comedian Hari Kondabolu (The Problem with Apu, Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell) as executive producer. With Wings and Roots accompanies the film’s release with a content-rich web platform of educational resources, including curricula, interactive timelines of U.S. and German immigration history, and the possibility for visitors to add their voices to the story collection.
