Kuije Kanan: Managalase Tattooing
The colonial government in 20th century Papua New Guinea required its indigenous communities to shift from subsistence food-growing and barter-and-trade to a cash-based market economy. This economic policy upset long-standing social and cultural practices of the Managalase people of Oro Province. This included pressure to stop indigenous adolescent male body tattooing, which had served as […]
Personas Desplazadas: The Miskitu Refugees from Nicaragua
This 1983 film by John Caldwell and Joel Sheesley examines the forced displacement of the Miskitu Indian Refugees from Nicaragua during the Reagan-era “Contra” war. In 1981, thousands of Miskitu Indians fled their ancestral homes in coastal Northeastern Nicaragua. The U.S. blamed the new leftist Sandinista government for driving the Miskitus out. Nicaragua denied this […]
Amor Vegetal: Our Harvest (La Cosecha Nuestra)
A community garden to address the nutritional needs of an Escondido neighborhood is the starting point for this multifaceted exploration of immigration, activism, media representation and self determination. To mitigate the detrimental effects that American fast food culture was having on the community, especially migrants, local organizers, including the filmmakers, took an innovative approach. They […]
Freak Street: The Migratory Patterns of Hippies on the Subcontinent
Documentarians John Caldwell and John L. Pudaite flip the script on immigration discourse as part of this illuminating look at migrants from Europe and America who relocated to South Asia during the heyday of the hippie counterculture. Artists, writers, musicians and others seeking alternative lifestyles in the 1960s and 1970s, they left their homes for […]
Land Hacks: Masculine Media Anxiety Disorder (Trumpworld)
In his latest experimental documentary, the two streams of Caldwell’s research interests come together in a rush. Parallel with an interrogation of Kern County, California, as a backdrop for Hollywood’s representations of rural communities — from John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940) to Zach Galifianakis’ Baskets (2016–2019) — Caldwell carries out a deep dive […]
Boron Lockout
In 2010, the isolated town of Boron, California, in the high Mojave Desert became the center of a global labor action after transnational mining company Rio Tinto suddenly suspended its contract negotiations and locked out the workers of its borax mine there. In this “off-the-grid” town, ILWU miners protested at the mine gates but also […]
Rancho California (por favor)
Premiering in the Frontier section at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002, John T. Caldwell’s experimental, ethnographic documentary explores the internal borders that extend well beyond the international line between Mexico and America, sharply dividing migrants in Orange and North San Diego Counties from the affluent suburbs that depend on their labor. In ravines and […]