It's Sunday afternoon, it's cold outside, it's raining or you just feel like relaxing and spending a quiet evening on the couch. As everyone knows, this is the perfect preamble to homesickness, especially when you are far away from your loved ones.
Perhaps in this situation, you might want to see a film of migrant people like you, who have left their home country, but still hold the presence of their loved ones and have the strength to move to a different country, simply to care for them from afar.
Among the migrant films that have had the greatest impact on us are those that capture exactly what we feel, the nostalgia that weighs on the chest, the memory that is not erased even when you change countries, and that silent strength to start from scratch without losing sight of where you come from. If you are one of those who support your family from afar, these stories will resonate with you.
We know what the migratory mourning, the fact that burdened with two lives, the one you left behind and the one you are building day by day. The migrant films show us that we are not alone, that this struggle to keep memory alive forges a new beginning and that is something universal.
Recommended migrant films
Today we bring you several migrant films that touch on just those topics. Take note and organize an evening of viewing to make yourself at home.
Minari. History of my family (2020)
The Yi family arrives in Arkansas in the 1980s with a dream, to grow the mythical Korean vegetables but on American soil. Jacob, the father, is convinced that they can grow their culture in these dry lands of another country. Monica, the mother, is hesitant, but obviously supports her husband. The children David and Anne navigate between English and Korean as they both try to get used to this new stage. Everything changes when Soonja, the grandmother, arrives with her bottle of «minari«a weed that grows where nothing else grows.
This migrants' film is pure poetry about the cultural shock. The nostalgia is in every scene: Monica missing Seoul as she cooks rice for her family, David smelling grandma's weed, Soonja saying ruefully. «this is not Korea» but still agrees to plant its seeds...
The most important thing is this force that the film conveys to start over. When the barn burns, when the heart fails, when all seems lost, the Yi family is still there. The grass “minari grows wild,” so the memory survives. It is a brutal reminder, because to migrate is not to forget, it is to replant your root in new soil.
Spare Parts (2015)
Four Hispanic students from Carl Hayden High School in Arizona are given a challenge: build an underwater robot to compete against MIT and other million-dollar universities. They have no budget. They have no papers. They just have a hunger to win and a teacher who believes in them.
This migrant film based on a true story shows the claw of those who have lost everything, but not hope. The kids recycle scrap metal, learn welding by themselves, practice in the public swimming pools of their city. They take every mistake as a lesson and every obstacle as an opportunity.
The nostalgia here appears in the small details of the film: they speak Spanish among themselves, recall anecdotes and the dreams they had in Mexico, but above all they carry the burden of demonstrate that migrants are also worth. The strength to start over is in every screw they tighten. When they win (yes, spoiler: they win), it's not just a technical victory. It's proof that a migrant's success doesn't need papers to shine.
How they build robots with everything they can get their hands on, we build the future with what we have. It is a mark of pure resilience.
In a New York City neighborhood (In the Heights, 2021)
Washington Heights is the Latino heart of New York. Its protagonist Usnavi dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic, but its wine cellar is the soul of the neighborhood, so you can't leave. In this casenostalgia invades them, Usnavi misses her grandmother's mangú, Nina misses her parents' home, and Nina misses her parents' house. all miss living in their hometown.
Lin-Manuel Miranda turned his musical into an explosion of color and rhythm brought to the big screen. The migrant films like this celebrate without a doubt the community they support, those you don't see physically, but are still in your head.
The strength to start over is seen in Usnavi's final decision, as he ponders throughout the film whether to stay or go. It is the question that all migrants ask ourselves at some point. In the end the neighborhood decides for him, because when you sustain community, it also sustains you.
The Farewell (2019)
Billi, born in New York, but raised in Changchun, China., When her grandmother, Nai Nai, gets the terrible news that her grandmother Nai Nai has terminal cancer, her family in China decides not to tell her. But her family in China decides not to tell her and organizes a fake wedding to bring everyone together before the end.
This migrant film directed by Lulu Wang (based on her true story) explores cultural tension. Billi, an American, wants brutal honesty. The Chinese family, on the other hand, prefers to protect her with silence. Nostalgia is in every morsel of the family dinner, in the songs Nai Nai sings, in the memories that Billi rescues from his Chinese childhood.
In the end Billi end up accepting both cultures, two opposing ways of thinking. He does not choose, he simply embraces both. This is also a kind of emotional migration, whereby he ends up learning to belong to two worlds without betraying either of them.
We migrants who are far from our country make these white lies on a daily basis. For example, when we say that we are fine, but we miss our family, but we remain strong just so that they are better off.
Upon Entry (The Arrival, 2022)
Diego, a Venezuelan architect, and Elena, a Catalan dancer from Barcelona, arrive in the United States with all their papers in order, ready to start a new stage. They want to strengthen their professions and build a family in the land of opportunities.
But as soon as they set foot in the New York airport, they are sent to the immigration control room. There, immigration agents put them through an uncomfortable search and a grueling interrogation that seeks to uncover anything that doesn't fit their story.
It is an example of how both have the strength to start over, in their desperate insistence to explain who they are in order to be allowed into the country. This film by Spanish migrants shows bureaucracy as something tedious that millions of people are faced with when they have to apply for their residency letter, the Green Card or some other document. Because a single detail or a doubt, no matter how small, can make your future crumble.
Why do these films have such an impact on us?
You are at films strike a chord because they hold in memory what we are now and what we left behind to be.
Embrace nostalgia, but without victimhood. It is a way of holding on to memories while we continue to struggle. Missing, in this case, strengthens, because it gives you the strength to move on, because you have a reason to do so.
In these audio-visual tapes, no family gives up, everyone is looking for the resilience to keep looking to the future to continue to grow and support our loved ones.
At Curiara we know that migrant films reflect our reality, Even though you are not there personally, you continue to support them no matter how far away you are. Each transfer is an act of love, care and a nod to the affection you have for them.
The important thing is that these films validate us, since they Migrating does not erase your root, it transforms it into something stronger. Like our families there, who with what they receive build a new, more prosperous, more welcoming, happier future.
If your life were a migrant film, what would it be called? What scene would show your nostalgia? How would you film your strength to start again? You can think about the answer while you enjoy these audiovisual works that we propose.
Because migrating is like living your own movie live, you can live your own drama, comedy, or musical in first person. This way you sustain your memory while forging a new one, starting from scratch, but without forgetting your roots.
Because as you know, at Curiara you transfer much more than money. We transfer presence through those silent heroes who keep the memory of their family alive. Transfer the strength to start over without forgetting where you come from.