Making a Mini Documentary

Here I talk about the inspiration and processes behind Asylum Life, my short film documenting a version of Haitian migration to United States.

Telling a story

In September 2021, thousands of Haitian migrants arrived at the Del Rio, Texas- Mexican border in caravans fleeing poor living conditions in South America. The Biden administration handled the crisis by referring to Title 42, which prevented asylum-seekers from petitioning for entry to the United States rights under Covid threats. As a result, thousands were deported to Haiti, and others camped for days at the U.S.-Mexico border in dehumanizing conditions. The world was shocked to see white men on horses whipping Haitians on foot, preventing them from crossing the Del Rio river back and forth to Mexico in search of food. Barely six months later, many observed the hypocrisy of the Biden administration that willingly wanted to support Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war conflict with Russia and sparing billions of dollars to help them. The world was perhaps less shocked to see pictures of President Biden lovingly holding a white Ukrainian girl in his arms in Poland as a show of compassion and solidarity with the Ukrainian people. Far from wanting to deny the Ukrainian people help, it bothered me that the Haitian migrants at Del Rio were not treated with even an ounce of the same respect. Many other nonwhite migrants have faced similar discrimination when risking their lives to take refuge in Europe. Many perish overseas or are treated like criminals when they reach Europe. That’s the story I wanted to tell. From the larger context of asylum seekers and refugee phobia, I wanted to hone on what happened in Del Rio to criticize high-income countries for how they handle migration is. I know how important it is for documentary filmmaking to have a story to tell. So, I collected data, analyzed, and edited my mini film with that story in mind.

Data Collection

Johana is a pseudonym that I assigned the documentary subject to protect her and her family’s privacy. I met her through family friends in Miami. Upon learning her story of being one of the recent refugees from the Del Rio incident of 2021, I asked her for an interview with the assurance that I would keep her identity private. She agreed, and I promised her that before I showed the documentary to anyone, I would send it to her to approve of how I told her story and portrayed her. I interviewed her at her house to spare her the trouble of taking the bus, but it interfered with the sound quality since her two-year-old daughter played in the background. Since Joanna is a shy woman, I worried that she would not open up. So as the investigator, I made it a priority to put her at ease and avoid a power dynamic that would compromise the research ethics. I gave her a $50 target gift that I told her the University I am affiliated with awarded to all research participants because she would not have accepted it otherwise. She kept apologizing for her daughter’s playing noises and I reassured her that I could still use the audio recording despite the child’s voice in the background. We had an excellent conversation that touched me and even impressed me at times. When I realized that much of the sound quality was not good, I knew that I had to use narration to put her story in context and translate it from Haitian Creole to English. The choice to use my voice as the narrator was because the film was small enough that I did not need to involve one more person to narrate. I was split between not wanting to be that voice of God in the film or wanting to have too much presence in it. In hindsight, I wish I had captured more neutral footage of our interview where her daughter’s face and hers were not shown or that so much of mine did not show either. Adding nuance and credibility to the documentary, I included other voices in the film, like a newscaster explaining how some of the Haitians at Del Rio did have the opportunity to stay with their families in the US. I fact-checked several news sources, researched Title 42, and browsed tweets from Haitian activists. I made sure that every part of the documentary was truthful, even though I cannot claim that parts of it were not biased. The song I played in the background was carefully chosen to evoke emotions. The choices I made for all photographs that I either moved around the frame or kept rolling for over eight seconds, I deliberately made thinking of Nicholas Mirzoeff’s The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality (Mirzoeff, 2011) and Susan Sontag’s The Pain of Others (Sontag, 2003). For example, there was something to see with the infamous pictures of the Syrian boy drowned near Turkey or white men on high horses reaching down to whip Haitian men on foot in search of food by the Del Rio migrant caravan.

Analysis and Edits

The practice side of making a mini documentary was more fun and time-consuming than I thought. I wanted to see what I could do using only my iPhone, which turned out to be possible. I used Filmmaker Pro to edit videos, sounds, and texts. I used the Voice Recorder and Audio Editor to replay the interview for my analysis. Then, the Notes app was convenient for writing my narration texts and analytical memos. I used WhatsApp’s profile screen for text with colorful backgrounds for a creative touch. I also used the edit pens available after screenshots to draw mapping lines that could resemble special effects. From the YouTube app, I downloaded the song and played the newscast video and other videos of the asylum seekers. I also downloaded all the other pictures that I did not take on the Google app. Twitter was also useful for current pictures of President Biden and the Ukrainian girl. But the most valuable iPhone feature to make this film was my iPhone’s screen recorder. Using that, I could record my zooming or moving pictures for the Ken Burns effect, quotes as they are being typed, and videos played from YouTube. Overall, I was pleased to see what I could do using just a cellphone.

Findings

The story that I wanted to tell was not the one that Joanna wanted to tell. She held no grudges for how she was treated in Del Rio. She even expressed that the Ukrainian crisis and the caravan camp at the U.S.-Mexico border were different because the Haitians overwhelmed the immigration and border patrol workers, who were not prepared for such an exodus. Joanna also maintained that God watched over her and her family to grant them entry to the US. They were lucky. I promised her that I would tell her story how she wanted it told. So, I did. Her way of seeing what happened as luck or divine providence had given me a new question to answer in my analysis. Was it luck that determined asylum seekers’ fate? And if it was, what qualifies as luck, gender, race, nationality, etc.? The question was not answered in the documentary. But instead, Joanna offered the greater lesson that we are all going through hard times and should all help each other when we can.