El mar la mar

The sun beats down mercilessly on all those who cross the Sonoran Desert between Mexico and the United States. Aside from the few people who live here, it’s the poorest of undocumented immigrants that make the crossing, who have no choice but to take this extremely dangerous route, followed by border guards both official and self-appointed. The horizon seems endlessly far away and deadly dangers lurk everywhere.

Main Festivals & Awards

Berlin, International Film Festival (2017)
IndieLisboa (2017)
DOK.fest München (2017)
Jeonju International Film Festival (2017)

Director's Biography

Joshua Bonnetta (b. Canada 1979) is an artist working with analogue film and sound in various modes of theatrical exhibition, performance and installation. His work has shown at The Berlinale, The Toronto International Film Festival, The Images Festival, Mutek International Festival of Electronic Music, European Media Arts Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Cleveland Museum of Modern Art and at festivals and venues through out Europe, U.K., Russia, North & South America. He was the 2009 recipient of the National Film Board of Canada award to 'Best emerging/mid-career Canadian film/video artist' and the winner of the Deluxe Cinematic Vision Award for Audio-Visual Innovation in 2010 and 2012 from The Images Festival. He has published sound releases with Senufo Editions, Experimedia, Shelter Press and Canti Magnetici. He is an associate professor for Film and Video Art and Sound Art at Ithaca College in New York State.

J.P. Sniadecki, assistant professor of radio/television/film, is a filmmaker and active anthropologist in China and the United States. His work explores collective experience, sensory ethnography, and the possibilities of cinema. His films are in the permanent collections of New York's Museum of Modern Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and have been screened at festivals such as the Berlinale, Locarno, New York, AFI, Edinburgh, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Viennale, Torino, BAFICI, RIDM, Cinéma du Réel, FICUNAM, and Beijing Independent Film Festival, as well as at venues such as the 2014 Whitney Biennale, the 2014 Shanghai Biennale, the Guggenheim, Vienna’s MAC, Beijing’s UCCA, and the Shenzhen Biennale.

His films include Chaiqian/Demolition (2010), winner of the Joris Ivens Award; Foreign Parts (2010), winner of two Leopards at Locarno and named Best Film at the Punto de Vista Film Festival and DocsBarcelona; People’s Park (2012), named Best Anthropological Film at Festival dei Popoli; and Yumen (2013), named Best Experimental Film and Best Chinese Film at the Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival. Sniadecki’s 2014 feature, The Iron Ministry has been screened widely and has garnered the top prize at L'Alternativa Film Festival and Jury Prizes at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Valdivia, and Camden. Coorganizer of the traveling film series Cinema on the Edge and China Now, which showcase new cinema from China. He has written articles and interviews about Chinese independent filmmaker for Cinema Scope and contributed to essays to Visual Anthropology Review and the edited volume DV-Made China (Hawaii University Press).