Cathryn Bennett and Tina Firesheets know the power of storytelling as a tool for generating empathy. Next weekend, they’ll share six films they believe can shape people’s perception of what it means to be an immigrant or refugee in today’s political climate.
A man who wants to bake to support his family. A woman searching for her missing husband. A chef crafting dinners inspired by her home country.
“Elevating these stories of immigrants’ lives and immigrants’ navigation of the U.S. culture and systems feels incredibly urgent,” said Bennett, the outreach associate for the New Arrivals Institute, which is hosting the event. “It feels more urgent this year because we know that art and stories humanize experiences and help so much to dispel myths and stereotypes.”
The Home Is Distant Shores Film Festival was co-founded by filmmaker Aby Rao, Clodagh Lyons-Bastian, and Scott Phillips in Cary eight years ago. Each year, the festival screens multiple films by immigrant and refugee storytellers in various locations in the city. Last year, Firesheets helped bring the event to Greensboro, where it showed a limited run of the films. On Friday, Oct. 16, the event will screen six films at downtown’s Van Dyke Performance Space, including one created by a Greensboro local.
“We don’t show precisely the same films as the Cary festival,” Bennett said. “It’s a selection. What we try to do is feature stories that would really resonate with a Greensboro audience.”
One of those films is “Threads,” by Greensboro filmmaker Sachi Deli. The film brings together multiple generations of Montagnard people who talk about how they and their families came to the United States.
“This is a uniquely Greensboro story,” Bennett said. “This is a uniquely North Carolinian story. And it’s one that, shockingly, most people who are not somehow involved in refugee and immigrant work…just do not know about.”
Many Montagnard people, who hail from the Central Highlands of Vietnam, fought alongside American forces and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War. Following the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, many Montagnards faced severe political marginalization, land confiscation, and persecution. In the decades that followed, several generations of Montagnard people resettled in the United States. Greensboro is now home to the largest population of Montagnard people outside of Vietnam.
“Changebaker” focuses on Manolo’s Bakery in Charlotte. The film tracks Manolo Betancur’s journey from Colombia to starting his own business in NC. Last year, the bakery was targeted by former U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino during immigration raids.
Expanding on last year’s vision, Firesheets said, this year’s festival will include a marketplace which will run alongside the screenings. The bazaar will feature immigrant and refugee artisans as well as food like baked goods from Manolo’s Bakery.
“It’s a chance to interact directly with members of immigrant and refugee communities and find an opportunity to really connect,” Firesheets said. “I believe that throughout time, the arts, literature, food, and music have brought people together across difficult and especially troubled times. I think if we can find a way to relate to one another, we’ll find that we’re really not that different at all.”
This diverse slate of films is particularly urgent this year, the organizers said.
One of the films, “Hielo,” stars Greensboro actor Jessica Crespo as a pregnant woman searching for her missing husband as she navigates the harsh realities of immigration raids, which Rao created during the pandemic. But given the Trump administration’s increased immigration enforcement, it now feels particularly harrowing.
“Each of these films acknowledges the fact that people are still being targeted,” Bennett said. “The films themselves have their own arcs of struggle to triumph, and that’s an important narrative. And then there’s the bigger picture context where people are still having issues in their day-to-day lives just with very normal pedestrian things like getting to work.”
Proceeds from ticket sales will support the New Arrival Institute’s many programs. The organization, which was founded in the late 1990s, started as a way to teach English to newly arrived refugees and immigrants. Since then, the organization has diversified its offerings to include case management, citizenship classes, health promotions, and more.
But last year the federal government cut about $300,000 in funding for the institute. The organization’s leaders feared they would have to stop providing English classes, the bedrock of their mission. But proceeds from last year’s film festival allowed the institute to hire the teachers it needed to keep the classes.
“It was a huge boon for us in a time of deep transition and need,” Bennett said.
As they anticipate more budget cuts next year, organizers said this year’s ticket sales will continue to support the institute’s needs.
In this way, the film festival is for people who care about a shared humanity, Firesheets said.
“I do believe that people are coming together,” Firesheets said. “That those of us who care deeply for democracy, who care deeply for our neighbors and for justice, there’s a sense of unity and a resolve that we are together and that is very beautiful and reassuring to be a part of and to witness.”
Home is Distant Shores will screen at 6:30 p.m. at the Van Dyke Performance Space in Greensboro on Friday, Oct. 16. The bazaar will run from 4:30-7:30 p.m. There will be a panel after the screenings. Tickets are on sale now. Use the promo code “neighbors” for $15 off.
Those with immigrant and refugee backgrounds can attend for free. Email Cathryn Bennett at cbennett@newarrivalsinstitute.com to learn more.
