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Armed with a handheld camera and an eighty-five pound backpack full of
batteries and film, Filmmaker Tommy Davis has created Mojados:
Through the Night.
Mojados follows four men from Michoacan, Mexico through the deserts of
the United States. This film is, in every sense, a true first hand
account of the plight of immigrants who risk death every day to enter
the United States. Davis researched, produced, filmed and edited
Mojados – his first full length film – on his own.
Davis grew up in the border town of McAllen, TX – living in a region
dramatically affected by the social and economic reverberations of the
tens-of-thousands of immigrants that cross the border every year.
Shocked at the increasing death rate amongst migrants as a result of the
implementation of Operation Gatekeeper – a federal crackdown on illegal
immigration from Mexico – Davis decided that the people who are too
often classified simply as numbers needed their story told.
Mojados puts a face on a people who are too often nameless caricatures
created by a system intent on keeping them from the American Dream.
Davis’ work provides insight into the migrants’ dreams of a better life,
the children they left behind, and the future they believe awaits them.
In sum, Mojados captures the humanity that is often forgotten in the
black and white political struggle that illegal immigration has become.
Davis’ decision to tell the story from the migrants’ point of view did
not come easy, however.
The story behind Mojados is that of a person struggling to determine the
most adequate way to dramatically represent the struggles of migrants
entering the United States. Davis decided that any work of fiction he
created could not accurately depict the struggles migrants face in their
search for work – a first hand account in the form of a documentary was
the only choice.
Davis, a 24 year-old non-Spanish speaking American funded the entire
project through odd jobs and good luck. After working several jobs he
earned enough money to begin the film, he took several trips to the
Mexican hinterlands and struggled to find the migrants who would trust
the gringo from “El Norte” holding a camera and promising he could keep
up with them on such a perilous journey.
Ultimately, Davis moved to the Mexican state of Michoacan to convince
the residents that he was serious. After several months of false-starts
and rejection, Davis met the men he would film after blindly asking the
proprietor of a small convenience store if he knew of any people
preparing to make the journey north. A resourceful little boy overheard
the conversation, ran from the store and brought back Tigre, a
22-year-old who shuttles between the US and Mexico every year to be with
his family; Viejo, a 26-year-old skilled carpenter leery of the camera;
Guapo, who at 20 years was the most insightful and open of the group;
and Oso, a farmer in his 50’s who’s been crossing annually for 20
years. Seeing the size of Davis’ equipment bag and camera the men were
hesitant to allow him to accompany them. Only after Oso devised a test
-- a day-long sojourn up and down a mountain with Davis taking all the
necessary equipment to film -- and Davis dutifully completed the
obstacles, did they all consent to his presence.
Because Davis ate the same moldy tortillas, climbed the same fences, and
drank the same mud as the four migrants, he earned the title “El Gringo
Mojado” and the trust of the group. The men realized that Davis’ work
was a chance to give the world an insight into their own lives and the
lives of their brethren. The result is a stunning, honest portrait of
an often traveled but rarely seen journey. |
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