New Mexico State University’s Creative Media Institute will host a showing of the film “Undeterred” at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 15 at the CMI theater in Milton Hall, Room 171.
This event is free and open to NMSU faculty, staff and students and the Las Cruces community. The event is co-sponsored by CMI, NMSU’s College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Government, Department of Anthropology and the Department of Language and Linguistics.
Eva Lewis, the filmmaker of “Undeterred,” made the film to examine how enforcement of the United States-Mexico border has affected the life of rural communities in Arizona. Even though this film focuses specifically on Arivaca, Arizona, where Lewis has lived for more than 10 years, it depicts how this situation impacts border regions, such as Las Cruces and El Paso.
“This film is kind of using this community as a lens to talk about what is happening on the border, how the community has changed and how it has organized to push back against those changes,” Lewis said. “I love going to other border communities and seeing how the issues that are talked about in the film are playing out in different places. I hope people will have a better understanding of the sort of form and function of border enforcement policies.”
Lois Stanford, department head for the Department of Anthropology, invited Lewis to the university after seeing her film and recognizing the importance of showing it to another community that has similar experiences.
“In anthropology, we recognize the importance of understanding the local level impacts of immigration from the perspective of border residents, that is, the people who live here,” Stanford said. “Outsiders sometimes have stereotypical ideas about the border and current situation. But we live here, and we have a much more complex and nuanced understanding. As well, as border residents, we can learn from diverse experiences of other communities, as depicted in this film on Arivaca, a rural border community in Arizona.”
Lewis will stay after the showing to answer any questions viewers may have about the film or the film process.
“Eva Lewis’s film ‘Undeterred’ is the kind of documentary we like for our students to see because it provides us the opportunity to have conversations and explore questions for which there are no easy answers,” said Amy Lanasa, CMI department head. “We are looking forward to co-hosting Eva’s visit and our students having the opportunity to see this work in our theater.”
For more information about “Undeterred,” visit https://www.newday.com/films/undeterred.
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CUTLINE: New Mexico State University’s Creative Media Institute will host a showing of the film “Undeterred” at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 15 at the CMI theater in Milton Hall, Room 171. The event is free and open to the public. (Courtesy photo)