January 7, 2022
From Presa House Gallery:
“First Friday, January 7, at 7 PM, join us to kick off our 2022 Indie Lens Pop-Up season. We’re proud to present Missing in Brooks County in partnership with ITVS. A short film curated by MonteVideo’s Manuel Solis and directed by Los Angeles; CA filmmaker Jon Ayon Alonso will precede our feature presentation.
Missing in Brooks County premieres on Independent Lens Monday, January 31, 2022, tune in or stream on KLRN or your local PBS station or stream on PBS Video.
Missing in Brooks County
Filmmakers: Jeff Bemiss, Lisa Molomot, and Jacob Bricca
Approximate running time: 60 min.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/459473705
Eddie Canales runs the South Texas Human Rights Center, but the messages that strangers leave on Eddie’s phone speak to his unofficial role as a private detective. In a rural community where more migrants go missing than anywhere else in the United States, families of lost loved ones call for help. Omar and Michelle reach out for help finding Omar’s brother Homero Roman, a longtime but undocumented U.S. resident who was deported to Mexico after a traffic stop at age 27. Struggling to adjust in an unfamiliar country, Homero eventually tried to return to his home of two decades. He disappeared in Brooks County. When another man, Juan Maceda, goes missing, his family also turns to Eddie, describing a familiar predicament in Mexico—a choice between lifelong poverty or gang affiliation that compels migrants like Juan to cross the border. Follow Eddie as he engages with border patrol agents to unlock the mysteries and confront the agonizing facts of life and death in a South Texas town many miles north of the border.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
An award-winning filmmaker, Co-Director/Producer Jeff Bemiss’ work has aired on network television and PBS. He is a graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. Jeff’s film The Book and the Rose was a semi-finalist for the Academy Award for best short film. Jeff shot and directed the award-winning short Coaching Colburn, which premiered at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.
Lisa Molomot (co-director/producer), a graduate of the American Film Institute, has directed several documentaries about the American Southwest, including The Cleaners, Teaching Arizona, and Soledad. Her award-winning film, School’s Out, was an integral part of the outdoor education movement, and her first documentary, The Hill, broadcast on PBS’s America Reframed
Jacob Bricca, ACE (producer/editor) has edited over a dozen feature documentaries, including Sundance Special Jury Prize Winner The Bad Kids (Independent Lens) and the international theatrical hit Lost in la Mancha. Fluent in Spanish, Jacob brings experience editing multicultural stories like Precious Knowledge (PBS). He is a graduate of AFI.
No Soy Óscar
Filmmaker: Jon Ayon Alonso
Approximate running time: 14:56 min.
Trailer Link: https://vimeo.com/543735882
A first-generation American father journeys through unrecognizable, unceded lands in the border regions between the U.S. and Mexico in search of the place where Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his young daughter Angie Valeria drowned.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
Jon Ayon Alonso is a Mestizx (Comcáac/Opata/Pipil/Xicanx/Salvadoreñx) filmmaker from LA. He began his career directing music videos for punk & indie bands in the Pacific Northwest. In Oakland, he worked as a Camera Operator and Editor for KDOL-TV & graduated from San Francisco State University’s School of Cinema with honors. His work has earned him awards from The Annenberg Foundation, The Caucus for Producers, Writers, & Directors, The SF Emmys, and American Zoetrope. Currently, Ayon is an MFA candidate in the Documentary Film program at Stanford. He has worked as an editor on the films HOODIE, THE CELINE ARCHIVE, & ALICE STREET and as a writer for LOWER BOOM. Ayon’s films highlight issues pertaining to the Latinx Diaspora such as Indigeneity, colonialism, & generational trauma.”
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