HOME WITH AMÉRICA
ABOUT
Gladys is an undocumented immigrant living in LA. She hasn’t returned to her native Peru in 22 years and cannot visit her dying mother, América, who recently lost her ability to walk and talk. They can no longer communicate across borders. Exploring themes of nostalgia, family separation, and home, “Home with América” follows Gladys’s act of poetic resistance to separation. Gladys finds a way, however imperfect and ephemeral, to connect with her mother.
Alvaro works at the intersection of media, tech, and activism. Alvaro co-founded the Family Reunions Project (FRP), a VR project immersing undocumented immigrants in the places they can’t physically return to. Alvaro directed and produced Home with América (2019), an award-winning room-scale interactive VR documentary around one of the families that participated in the FRP. In 2020, Alvaro co-directed “Hostile Terrain 94,” an augmented reality storytelling and memorial experience protesting the thousands of migrant deaths along the US-Mexico border. He is also in post-production for his first feature-length documentary, “Estamos Unidos,” which follows one of the migrant caravans as they make their way from Honduras to Mexico and the United States. Alvaro has received funding and/or support for his media work from National Geographic, Verizon, IFP, Tribeca Film Institute, Facebook, Google, Open Society Foundation, and the Fund for Undocumented Social Entrepreneurs, among others.
CREDITS
Nahanaeli Schelling
Erica Newman
Frisly Soberanis
Camila Dominguez