From Here

The Centre for the Study of the United States and our event co-sponsors had a screening of the documentary film FROM HERE. This award-winning film interweaves the deeply personal stories of four immigrants as they navigate the challenges of identity and belonging. The screening was followed by a Q&A session with the film's director, Cristina Antonakos-Wallace, and one of the film's protagonists, Tania Mattos, who joined us across borders over Zoom.

 

FROM HERE description: As the U.S. and Europe grapple with rising nationalism and movements against increasing diversity, FROM HERE offers a fresh and different perspective to the issues of immigration and belonging. The film is an intimate yet epic look at the stories of four children of immigrants Tania, Miman, Sonny, and Akim, as they move from their 20s into their 30s and face major turning points in their lives: fighting for citizenship, starting families, and finding room for creative expression.

 

"FROM HERE" Trailer: https://vimeo.com/109329686

 

 

Christina Antonakos-Wallace, Director/Producer, Camera/Editor

 

Christina is a filmmaker and cultural organizer. Awards include the Euromedia Award for Culture & Diversity (2011), a Media that Matters Change Maker Award (2012), and recognition from the German Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance (2015). Her short films and interactive work has been exhibited in over fifteen countries through festivals, schools, galleries, NGOs, and corporations. Commissions and grants include the New America Foundation, Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, and the German Ministry for Civic Education. She was a Fellow at Hedgebrook (2017) and the Port Townsend Film Festival (2015), and holds a BFA/BA from the New School & Parsons School of Design. Her work was recognized with a five-year MTV Fight For Your Rights Scholarship (2002) and a Humanity in Action Fellowship (2006), which she completed at the United Nations High Commission on Refugees in Berlin. FROM HERE is her first feature-length documentary.

 

Tania Mattos, Film Protagonist and Activist

 

Tania is an Aymara descendent, Bolivian-born, Queens-based organizer, and strategist. She joined Envision Freedom with 14 years of experience as an immigrant and worker rights organizer and advocate. As Legislative Coordinator for the New York State Youth Leadership Council, she helped organize the first Education Not Deportation program in New York that stopped the deportation of undocumented youth people. Tania is a co-founder of Queens Neighborhoods United, a grassroots anti-gentrification collective. Tania was a DACA recipient from 2012 to 2019.

 

Leah Montange (Moderator), Bissell-Heyd Lecturer, Centre for the Study of the United States

 

Dr. Leah Montange is the Bissell-Heyd Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Toronto.  Dr. Montange is a human geographer whose work addresses the relations between human life and state power in contexts of bordering, detention, and labor — contexts where freedom, unfreedom and mobility are at stake.   Her work is published in journals such as Citizenship Studies; Environment and Planning D: Society and Space; the Annals of the American Association of Geographers; and Globalizations.  In the American Studies program at U of T, she teaches core courses as well as specialized thematic courses on borders, labour, immigration and empire. Dr. Montange received a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Toronto, where she was a recipient of the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship and was a Pruitt Dissertation Fellow of the Society of Women Geographers. She has also taught behind bars with the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound.

 

We are grateful for the support of our co-sponsors, who made this event possible:

 

This event was organized by the Centre for the Study of the United States.