Director: Tiffany Rhynard
Running Time: 82 mins
Certificate: NR (US)
Release Date: July 12th 2016 (Outfest Screening)
Living in the UK, it can’t be said we have much of a ‘problem’ with immigrants from South/Central America, although as Brexit has shown – which was largely fuelled by a fear of mass immigration from Eastern Europe – issues with ugly xenophobia pretending it isn’t xenophobia is a problem across the First World (in fact across pretty much the whole world).
Forbidden: Undocumented & Queer In Rural America opens with Donald Trump’s hideous rhetoric about Mexican rapists and calls to build a border wall that Mexico is apparently going to pay for, before introducing us to Moises Serrano, who was born in Mexico but was brought to the US when he was a toddler, and now lives in rural North Carolina. Now in his 20s and despite the fact he was so small when he came to the United States, he is undocumented. That means he’s not just barred from many basic benefits naturalised citizens get, but when the documentary opens he’s potentially at risk of being deported to a country he hasn’t been in since he was two-years-old. [Read more…]