Sentenced Home
by Nicole Newnham, David Grabias
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DVD details
Actor: Kim Ho Ma, Loeun Lun, Many UchDirector: David Grabias, Nicole Newnham
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 76 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-06-06
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Indiepix
DVD Reviews of Sentenced Home
DVD Review: A Sad Commentary on Our Nation
Summary: 1 Stars
"Sentenced Home" tells the story of three Cambodian refugees who were brought here in the 1980's as part of our government's attempt to defuse what happened to ordinary people in Cambodia when Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge created the great cleansing of the country. Brought into a foreign culture, given no significant assistance in making the transition, dumped in a world totally incomprehensible, left to rot in public housing and inferior schools in Seattle, the three men who are the subjects of the film show the cruelty and indifference of the INS and subsequently the DHS (the parent governmental agency now responsible for immigration and border patrol and customs since 9/11). Granted, in the course of growing from children at age 8 to young men in their 20's, these three men all had run-ins with the law as a result of gang connections, nevertheless, they did their time, stayed clean afterwards, and tried to create decent lives with their families. But between the "I cannot do anything but follow the law" attitude of the Federal Prosecutors (as if there were no prosecutorial discretion) and the nonchalant attitude of the Federal Public Defender (let's get a Starbucks and do you like my pony tail?), these three men are sentenced for removal (what used to be called deportation). The film follows two of the men back to Cambodia, where one is building a house for himself and for his wife and children when they visit him and the other is just bitter about being tossed out of the country that supposedly was a refuge. Had these men been given adequate legal advice early enough during their stay here, they would have been citizens by the time they were convicted and thus, would not have been "removed." After all, we do not deport American citizens, even those who are foreign born, when they have committed a crime. The film-makers are most sympathetic to the one man remaining in Seattle who is awaiting his orders to report for removal. His case is so unique that we wonder why an exception cannot be made for him. The film leaves us without an answer. While there are cinema verite qualities to this documentary, "Sentenced Home" is not a Frederic Wiseman documentary. And that is too bad---for it needed the sense of moral outrage regarding how we treat people who never asked to come here and who are now banned from ever returning, even though they have families that are American citizens. The movie is too soft on immigration law, too soft on the post-9/11 amendments to INA, too soft on the U.S.Attorneys, too soft on the Public Defenders. A film such as this one needs to take a stand, a firm, strong stand---and it needs that sense of moral outrage that the great documentaries have. Imagine "Night and Fog" (Alain Resnais' great film about Nazi concentration camps) without the overt irony, without the overt sense of moral outrage, without the overt disgust. Somebody needs to shake up the film-makers and get them to rage against the injustices here. "Sentenced Home" is a sad commentary on our nation and its immigration policy----but it is a sadder commentary on the virtual moral cowardice of the film-makers who made it.
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Description of Sentenced Home
Picked for broadcast on PBS's famed Independent Lens series, SENTENCED HOME is a gripping documentary exploration that humanizes the United States' tragically flawed immigration policy. This wrenching and emotionally affecting story follows 3 Cambodian-American immigrants living in Seattle. In the early 80s, these children were among multitudes of Cambodian refugees given shelter from the genocidal Khmer Rouge in Seattle's housing projects. Now, their teenage rebellions have caught with them in a horrific way, and the confluence of their non-citizenship (they are "permanent residents") and post 9/11 anti-terrorism laws lead to their immediate deportation. Directors Nicole Newnham and David Grabias follow the men back to their native Cambodia, a country that is unfamiliar and fearsome to them. Weaving a complex tale that touches on everything from immigration, genocide and our present culture of fear to the ties of family, SENTENCED HOME is a remarkable, and urgent, story. Filmed over the course of three years, filmmakers David Grabias and Nicole Newnham have captured intimate moments that crystallize the raw emotion and human impact of deportation: Loeun Lun saying a painful farewell to his wife and two young daughters the day of his deportation; Kim Ho Ma turning to alcohol and drugs in Phnom Penh as a way to deal with his anger and hopelessness; and Many Uch proudly pledging allegiance to the United States during a baseball game, even as he waits for his turn to be deported.Bestsellers in DVD
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