Every day, thousands of impoverished people leave their Central American homes and try to come into the United States in hopes of finding better job opportunities.
Uli Stelzner flew in from Berlin, Germany, to show his most recent documentary, "Assaulted Dream," in which he uses only a small Panasonic camcorder to capture migrant life at the Guatemalan-Mexican border.
The film is shown at numerous universities around the United States. Stelzner said the college student demographic was one of the specific audiences he had in mind while filming. This documentary was sponsored by the Graduate Student Association as part of a free film series shown at 8 p.m. every Thursday in the Graduate Student Lounge of the Rutgers Student Center on the College Avenue campus.
"This way, you are reaching different types of people at a certain age, but most have not yet identified themselves with these kinds of situations because they've most likely never seen them," Stelzner said.
Stelzner filmed people who tried to leap onto moving freight trains that will eventually carry them the 3,100 miles to the United States border boundary. He did not use a camera crew or any equipment other than a simple digital camera. The few things he had with him on his 10-day stay in Guatemala were a small bag and the clothes on his back.
"The only difference between me and the migrants was that I had a passport," Stelzner said.
During a question and answer session, Stelzner said he became interested in producing this documentary because he saw some photos in a Guatemalan newspaper of Guatemalans trying to jump on the trains.
"It took me about four years to learn about Guatemalan history after seeing those photographs," he said. "But then I wanted to do some real investigation. I knew I would find people with great hopes and dreams, but also people with great frustration."
Gidon Weisberg, a Graduate School of Education student, was interested to see the film because he realized the effect immigrants have on student life at the University and wanted to learn more.
"Everything that we eat comes from immigrant farm labor," Weisberg said. "Lots of buildings are built by immigrant workers. Basically, immigrants do any menial job that we are not going to do for $8 an hour."
Steltzer said the Mexican and U.S. governments are taking baby steps to significantly change the problem.
"To do something concrete is very difficult," he said. "The most important thing right now is for people to take consciousness of the situation and to see migrants through their eyes."
People can start by watching this film, Stelzner said.
"It brings you one and a half hours closer to really understanding the 'American Dream,'" he said.
Mason Gross School of the Arts graduate student Tsubasa Berg came to watch the film for its particular visual technique.
"The creative aspect of how this film is documented is interesting," Berg said. "I'm studying his documentary style and can relate to what Stelzer does."
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