Laredoans Speak: Voices on Immigration

A Border Town Pictures production. Created by Victor A. Martinez, Ryan Schafer, Pepe Serna. Executive producer, Frank Esposito, Frederick Wise. Directed, compiled by Victor A. Martinez, Ryan Schafer.With: Raul Salinas, Henry Cuellar, Juan Garza, Robert Greenblum, Richard Pauza Junior., Pepe Serna, Robert Cremo, Jesus Martinez.In Victor A. Martinez and Ryan Schafer's naive, sloppy documentary, Laredoans (people from Laredo) indeed speak their marbles, or at best a couple of of these do. Some six or seven males (women plainly absent), together with a mayor, an immigration lawyer, a congressman along with a "coyote," offer sights on immigration. Regrettably, all of them the same factor -- and it is nothing new, affecting or articulate. Pic bows November. 18 at Gotham's Quad Cinema before moving towards the dustbin. In various rhetorical styles, in the careful evasiveness from the Texas congressman towards the contemptuousness from the silhouetted smuggler, the participants argue with respect to guest-worker visas, consider border walls an insult and believe People in mexico are discriminated against because of racism. They produce their clincher -- America is really a country of immigrants! -- using the type of enthusiasm that generally comes with a recently minted thought. One interviewee even quotes the Emma Lazarus poem at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty, verbatim. Occasionally, rebus-like record charts, whose relevance is tangential at best, occupy the screen for lengthy stretches sans commentary.Camera (color, HD), Martinez editor, Schafer music, Christian Mendoza. Examined on DVD, NY, November. 14, 2011. Running time: 75 MIN. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com