Immigration-themed movies are riding high

This boomlet in immigration stories has been building over the past several years. The 2004 film “Maria Full of Grace,” about a Colombian drug mule’s attempts to make it in the wilds of Queens, was a Sundance Film Festival prize winner, and its lead actress, Catalina Sandino Moreno, was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. In 2005, “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” followed an undocumented Mexican worker who died in an accident and the attempts by his boss to bury him in his native village.

“Babel” (2006) featured a heart-rending segment about a Mexican woman who returns home to attend her son’s wedding, but finds she cannot re-enter the U.S.

“These films are important,” says Calixto Chinchilla, executive director of the New York International Latino Film Festival. “They shed a light on Latino immigrants who want to migrate to the U.S.”"*

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