Home is Somewhere Else

This movie tackles one of the most difficult and important subjects of our time with great visual appeal and a lot of heart. For the benefit of audiences too comfortable and secure to relate to the immigrant experience, "Home is Somewhere Else" humanizes people who have been stigmatized, hounded and oppressed. Three families, each with their own version of cross-border and intergenerational trauma, give us a real taste of what it's like to be trapped between Mexico and the United States. Dreams soar, only to be crushed; parents raise their children on a shoestring, only to be deported; simple pleasures enjoyed one day may be replaced by bureaucratic or extrajudicial nightmares the next. Deep love and tremendous pain are portrayed in equal measure through a rich palette of beautiful animation and narrated in the families' own voices. On an aesthetic, political and emotional level, I highly recommend this film.