Both Northern Mexico and Southern Texas face unprecedented migration challenges. Finding innovative ways to build understanding and to create solutions across borders is critical. This November, IOM Mexico joins with USA for IOM in presenting the first-ever Global Migration Film Festival (GMFF) to be hosted in both Mexico and the United States.

The groundbreaking event will take place in El Paso, Texas, with the collaboration of the Consulate General of Mexico in El Paso on November 15th at the Philanthropy Theater / The Plaza Theater at 5:30 pm. The feature movie, “Home is Somewhere Else,” is written and directed by Carlos Hagerman and Jorge Villalobos. The film shares three heartwarming stories of young people sharing their fears and hopes of living in the United States, told through animation and featuring the actual voices of the migrants behind the stories. The event is free and open to the public. After the screening, there will be a dialogue with IOM Chief of Mission Dana Graber Ladek and film director Jorge Villalobos on the significance of empathetic narratives about migrants.

“Through the GMFF, we aspire to honor and celebrate the genuine contributions migrants make to receiving communities. Films have the power to humanize migrant stories and to help people think about them as agents of positive change,” says Dana Graber Ladek, IOM Chief of Mission in Mexico.

The El Paso event is part of a multi-day Global Migration Film Festival (GMFF) hosted by IOM Mexico, which includes eight films to be shown in 14 cities around Mexico. The festival is co-sponsored by USA for IOM. IOM has been organizing Global Migration Film Festivals across the world since 2016. The main objective of these festivals is to leverage the power of cinema to enhance people’s understanding of the migration process and to counteract hate speech and xenophobia directed towards migrants.

For more information please contact:

In Mexico, acabezas@iom.int, +52 55 4525 8361
In the USA: Stacey Cohan, scohan@iom.int, + 1 202 445 9344