In the mid-2000's, the Department of Homeland Security initiated Operation Streamline, a policy intended to deter illegal entrants along major corridors of the U.S.-Mexico border through fast, large-scale criminal prosecutions and increased sentencing guidelines. Migrants apprehended in Operation Streamline sectors are shackled, brought before a judge in large groups, and sentenced, all in a matter of minutes. There is little time for legal counsel. No one fights the charges. The vast majority take a deal to serve several months of jail time, typically in private prisons, prior to being deported. Some have violent criminal records, but for most, the only crime is illegal entry. And being caught previously only compounds the jail sentence. Many serve their time, are sent back, only to try again to enter the United States. The result of the program is hundreds of thousands of assembly-line prosecutions, untold years of time served, and billions of dollars spent, with little sense of the efficacy and value of the program in actually discouraging illegal entries. While the initiative has recently been scaled back in some areas, the lack of action from Congress, along with the unclear legal status of the recent executive orders, means that the mass apprehensions and prosecutions of migrants will continue for the foreseeable future. At the same time, one should not suffer the illusion that Operation Streamline and other initiatives such as Arizona's infamous SB 1070 are strictly about immigration. Rather, these policies are about America's relationship with its people of color and of poverty, a history of exploitation and repression administered through public policy. It's not strictly an immigration issue. It's also an issue of law enforcement, of police powers, and of a prison-industrial system that is far more cultural and historical than we would like to admit.




My short film Vida Muertos is not about Operation Streamline. Not exactly. Rather, it is about the living and the dead, and the very tenuous line between them. The world of this film is one where the line between the dead and the living is somewhat more material and tangible than we typically understand it. The dead are not so much buried as they go on an extended journey into the realm of the afterlife. Many go willingly, at first. After some time, however, some desire to return in our world, to be with their families, to work and to, well, live. Perhaps it is about Operation Streamline, at least a little bit. I want the film to use an entertaining yet thought-provoking genre framework to explore issues of immigration, law enforcement, and public policy, as well as how those issues directly impact the human experience. The drama here is both one of large-scale bureaucratic structures and deeply personal realities: How do these characters navigate a world where being with a loved one is against the law? What choices do people make under such circumstances? What small lies and betrayals does such a system encourage, or even require, in order to create the illusion of security?




The allegory is bound to be inexact. This is not a world where the undocumented people are magically replaced by the dead. I believe that the world of the film is one worth exploring on its terms. I hope that the audience does ask questions of why the dead must be removed. In doing so, they can perhaps ask those same questions of our real-world policies, policies that are ultimately far more cultural in orientation than we would like to believe. There must be more choices than our rather narrow political dialogue allows, but our narrow politics in turn limits our choices. It's not a poverty of resources but a poverty of imagination.





The film is visually and aesthetically inspired by the iconography of Día de los Muertos, the political “new weird” novels of China Mieville, who often situates the strange and fantastic in realpolitik dynamics, and the genre of film noir. As a native of Tucson, I am artistically indebted to the annual All Souls Procession, a massive carnivalesque march through the heart of the city where artists and community members celebrate and remember the dead, protest the powers that be, and show off intricate costumes, makeup, and artworks. In this film, the dead are tattooed upon their last breath, marked for eternity with the distinctive, elaborate Calavera design, or at least until they crumble into dust. They have culture and language, an ethereal and intangible set of gestures and utterances. They keep to the shadows, creep and glide through the streets to secret speakeasies where they can dance into the deepest dark of night. Enter noir. Noir is the cinematic genre of darkness, paranoia, of sex and crime and tragic heroes. Noir is a genre where the weight of the atmosphere hovers long after the final frame of the film, and I think is both visually and thematically appropriate. A visual palette of extreme lights and darks, with flourishes of color, will capture both the decorative qualities of the Dead and express the moody and dream-like qualities of the narrative.