“Oh Mercy”- A Documentary on Migration
Highlighting the Refugees and Migrants Entangled in the Crisis at the U.S. – Mexico Border
~ by Soli Salgado, Global Sisters Report
A face familiar to most North American sisters takes center stage in the upcoming film “Oh Mercy,” a 10-minute documentary that highlights the refugees and migrants entangled in the crisis in the U.S. – Mexico border.
The filmmakers chose Missionary of Jesus Sr. Norma Pimentel to be the lens through which they view the issue of migration, focusing on the refugee camp in Matamoros, Mexico, where she regularly ministers.
With Pimentel as the film’s “heroine,” the audience can witness the realities on the border in a “highly compassionate, not preachy way,” Robert Bilheimer, the director of the documentary, said in an interview with Global Sisters Report. Bilheimer thought Pimentel was a “compelling figure” to tell the story at the border.
(Bilheimer’s previous films covered South African apartheid, human trafficking and the AIDs epidemic.)”Oh“If you can help people see and believe that basic goodness and humanity in people, and if they see, unvarnished, their suffering – our experience is that people respond to it,” he said.
Seeing [migration] as the “defining geopolitical, cultural, humanitarian issue of our time,” Bilheimer said the series was an effort to “deconstruct” the many forces behind the involuntary migration seen around the world, whether it is due to climate change, gang violence or government failure.
The documentary depicts just a few of the thousands of violent and desperate situations that have driven families to flee their homes in Central America. Bilheimer said it’s up to the viewers to determine what the film is about, but for him, it’s a demonstration of the capacity for “deliberate evil – and I use the word carefully and advisably” – in the form of exclusionary U.S. immigration policies. “It’s a scar on our nation’s history.”
“Oh Mercy” will premiere today, Thursday, February 25 at 5 p.m. EST, and a panel with Sr. Pimentel, Bilheimer and other speakers will follow the premier. To read the complete article, click here
To view a short promotional video on the documentary, click here
To register for the premier of the documentary and panel discussion, click here