BACKGROUND
Bungalow, cottage, flat, gaff, hut, ranch, kulia, siheyuan, yurt are some of the ways we describe our dwelling. Perhaps the most complex question immigrants and refugees have trouble answering is - Where is home? Is it the place where you are physically located? Is it where your heart is? It is where your memories are? With that in mind, we decided to build a curated website and a film festival that celebrates the lives and experiences of immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, expats who left their land of birth for myriad of reasons and moved to a new country. We are interested in wide variety of topics such as migration journey, border security, education, employment, documented and undocumented immigration, community integration, family separation, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), resettlement of refugee and asylum seekers etc. We encourage various storytellers to share their work with almost 800,000 immigrants who reside in North Carolina state and beyond.
ABOUT HOME IS DISTANT SHORES
The film festival was launched in October 2019 and was organized by two non-profit organizations, namely, International Focus and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants -North Carolina and an independent film production company-VerveFilms. The three-day event included fictional and documentary pieces from local filmmakers, panel discussions, and a celebratory reception.
In 2020, we went online and presented 25 films and music video which was viewed by more than 2000 individuals from all over the world.
In 2021, due to resurgence of COVID delta variant we moved the festival online. We showcased 19 films from all over the world. In order to encourage storytelling of various types, Home Is Distant Shores will be a curated website.
In 2022, we finally brought the festival back to the theater after couple years of virtual screenings. On July 23rd 2022, we screening two blocks with 6 films each. After each screening we held Q&A with the filmmakers and community leaders to share their immigrant and refugee experience.