Extra Credit- The Girl Screening

The Girl directed by David Riker is a thought provoking film that redefines the ‘immigration story’ commonly portrayed in the media. The film centers around an Anglo-American woman who is at a crossroads in her life. She wants to reunite with her son but refuses to take responsibility for her actions. As she grows desperate, she plans to smuggle people across the border into the United States for a large fee. However she fails to think through the plan and several of the migrants drown in the river. She forced to deal with the consequences of her actions when a young girl crosses the river but has lost her mother in the process. Throughout the film, this woman attempts to leave the child several times but never succeeds. As she grows closer with the child, she realizes she cannot abandon the child and instead decides to reunite her with the rest of her family. However this action comes at a cost and she misses a court date as a result. This selfless act shows the character’s development and gives the film a larger context in which to operate. It shows the woman that although she thought nothing was going right in her life, there are always ways to improve your situation.

Initially I was confused as to why the protagonist was a Anglo-American woman seeing as the story revolves around immigration. However after the Q&A with the filmmaker David Riker, it became increasingly clear that the film was attempting to turn the immigration story completely upside down. In my opinion, he succeed in this because commonly in the media we are confronted with negative immigration stories. These stories are commonly presented as individuals migrating to the North for better prospects in terms of employment, educational opportunities and overall higher quality of life. However this is a single narrative of immigration and there are various stories that are not told through the media. This is why I found Mr. Riker’s film so moving because it opened my eyes to the fact that there are so many other stories surrounding immigration that are being hidden from the limelight and we need filmmakers like Mr. Riker to remind people that the stories we hear in the media are not the only ones that exist.