Exclusive: Blumhouse Television has optioned the Sundance award-winning documentary-narrative film, The Infiltrators from Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra to adapt as a scripted series. Jenniffer Gomez will write and produce the adaptation. The critically praised film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was honored with The Audience Award: Next and The Next Innovator Prize.
The Infiltrators, a hybrid of real-time documentary footage and dramatic reconstructions, tells the real – and surreal – story of three young undocumented immigrants, Marco Saavedra, Viridiana Martinez and Mohammad Abdollahi, who in 2012 dared to defy the system by embarking on a high-risk mission to infiltrate a secretive for-profit detention center. By intentionally getting detained by the Border Patrol and voluntarily surrendering their freedom, these “Infiltrators” went into detention to uncover cases of abuse, organize behind bars, and help other detainees (and themselves) eventually get free. The story is a jail-break — in reverse.
The Infiltrators, a hybrid of real-time documentary footage and dramatic reconstructions, tells the real – and surreal – story of three young undocumented immigrants, Marco Saavedra, Viridiana Martinez and Mohammad Abdollahi, who in 2012 dared to defy the system by embarking on a high-risk mission to infiltrate a secretive for-profit detention center. By intentionally getting detained by the Border Patrol and voluntarily surrendering their freedom, these “Infiltrators” went into detention to uncover cases of abuse, organize behind bars, and help other detainees (and themselves) eventually get free. The story is a jail-break — in reverse.
- 5/2/2019
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
Toronto – Just weeks after the Sundance premiere of “The Infiltrators,” Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera’s documentary about conditions inside a Florida immigration detention center, one of the film’s subjects, Claudio Rojas, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents and deported back to his native Argentina.
Rojas, who spent 19 years living in the U.S., had been an inside source for a documentary that exposed abuses inside the Broward Transitional Center, a for-profit institution that has detained hundreds of immigrants without trial. His ordeal served as a timely reminder of the countless lives still imperiled by the recent migrant crisis — a historical event that’s offered raw material for a number of documentaries screening at the Hot Docs Canadian Intl. Film Festival this year.
“It’s an ongoing theme that’s more important than ever,” said Shane Smith, Hot Docs director of programming. “Filmmakers are...
Rojas, who spent 19 years living in the U.S., had been an inside source for a documentary that exposed abuses inside the Broward Transitional Center, a for-profit institution that has detained hundreds of immigrants without trial. His ordeal served as a timely reminder of the countless lives still imperiled by the recent migrant crisis — a historical event that’s offered raw material for a number of documentaries screening at the Hot Docs Canadian Intl. Film Festival this year.
“It’s an ongoing theme that’s more important than ever,” said Shane Smith, Hot Docs director of programming. “Filmmakers are...
- 5/2/2019
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Chronicling the audacious acts of a group of organized undocumented youth prior to the Obama-implemented, temporary relief known as Daca (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), “The Infiltrators,” from Latinx directors Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra, is a vital piece of hybrid cinema that shines light into the obscure realm of privately-operated immigration detention facilities. The timely film world-premiered Friday night at the Sundance Film Festival.
Interweaving firsthand accounts in talking-head format and scripted reenactments, Rivera and Ibarra construct a high-stakes, real-life drama centered on the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (Niya), comprised of resourceful and deeply committed DREAMers who’ve dared to defy the system, not only for their own benefit but also for the greater good.
“Everyone needs a plan,” says Niya activist Marco Saavedra (played by Maynor Alvarado in the docufiction sections) when detailing their strategy behind the 2012 infiltration of the Broward Transitional Center, an immigration jail in Florida,...
Interweaving firsthand accounts in talking-head format and scripted reenactments, Rivera and Ibarra construct a high-stakes, real-life drama centered on the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (Niya), comprised of resourceful and deeply committed DREAMers who’ve dared to defy the system, not only for their own benefit but also for the greater good.
“Everyone needs a plan,” says Niya activist Marco Saavedra (played by Maynor Alvarado in the docufiction sections) when detailing their strategy behind the 2012 infiltration of the Broward Transitional Center, an immigration jail in Florida,...
- 1/26/2019
- by Carlos Aguilar
- The Wrap
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