citizens of nowhere
The Client
United Stateless
The challenge
We were asked to create a short documentary film about the issues that the Stateless community in the United States face every day.
Scope of Work
Full Production : concept, script, principal photography, editing, color, sound, festival strategy
Background Info
A stateless person is someone who, because of circumstance or technicality, doesn’t have a nationality. That means no passport, a lifetime of complications, bureaucratic headaches, and harassment from the US government because they don’t fall into any official “box”. This makes things like getting a job, applying to university, having a family, doing any of the things many people consider a given right of living in this country, near impossible.
What’s worse, there is no law that protects them or grants them specific rights or due process in obtaining a citizenship of somewhere, meaning for their entire lives they are literally “citizens of nowhere”.
United Stateless is an organization that is working to change all that, and this film is a journey into the lives and experiences of the Stateless people who make up the USL community.
process
This project has been a labor of love for everyone involved. Over years of production, Wtysl managed to capture the stories of each USL member, tweaking the story over time as peoples’ situation changed.
It started with Karina, USL’s director, a Stateless person herself, and the powerhouse behind the historic progress USL is making towards passing a law protecting Stateless people in the US.
After capturing her story, Karina connected us to the rest of the USL community, who we met up with in different parts of the country to capture their story. Once we wrapped filming, we began the process of editing the film and other campaign material to be used in USL’s fight for recognition in Congress.
It has been a privilege for our crew to be involved in this project, and we continue to work with Karina and the USL crew to see how we can help them achieve their goals.