Changing the Narrative
Oh Mercy - Searching for Hope in the Promised Land
In February 2021, Worldwide Documentaries, a not-for-profit documentary film company based in Rochester, New York, released Oh Mercy - Searching for Hope in the Promised Land. Since then, access to the film and news of it has spread rapidly at the grassroots level.
With each of their films, Worldwide Documentaries takes a humanitarian approach to issues that define our time. Now is when we must work together to make the changes needed for a humane immigration system and a better future for those who wish to find life in the promised land.
“We at Worldwide Documentaries are inspired and encouraged by the mission of Hearts & Homes for Refugees and their hope to shift the U.S. refugee resettlement paradigm. It’s important, now more than ever, that any person wishing to migrate to the United States feels welcome in doing so. Hearts & Homes is a shining example of how communities across the Unites States can provide an open and welcoming environment for refugees, much in the same way that we hope to do with our films, by continuing to tell their stories and changing the narrative.”
Oh Mercy is a documentary short about thousands of refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers from Central America awaiting court dates and immigration hearings in the U.S. with no end in sight. Increasingly desperate and discouraged, they are huddled in squalid camps and detention centers on both sides of the Rio Grande, which for several hundred miles serves as a natural border between Mexico and the United States. Oh Mercy follows the stories of refugee families living in the Matamoros, Mexico tent encampment before its closing in February 2021. The film features the stories and the pleas for humanity of Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, and Cindy Andrade Johnson, a Methodist deaconess and volunteer in Brownsville, Texas. The remarkable, immediate response to Oh Mercy is evidence that the issues it touches upon are timely and important.
The mission of the Running to Stand Still film series, for which Oh Mercy is the first film, is to tell the real stories of the many migrants, refugees and asylum seekers currently trying to find a path to a safe life in the United States. The film series will aim to educate its viewers about the daily struggles that they face and the dangers they encounter, and help to change the immigration narrative from one of exclusion to one of inclusion.
A major component in the outreach of these films is to show that there is hope, and that it’s possible for us to change the awful and dehumanizing narrative that has surrounded these children, women, and men for far too long. A human being that flees their country, pushed by factors beyond their control, and sets forth on the most dangerous and uncertain journey into the United States should be welcomed with open arms, not turned away or torn from their family, especially when our asylum policies have long ensured safety here.
