The two films in this program follow families who face the threat of deportation and the grave uncertainty of their futures. In Santuario we meet Juana Luz Tobar Ortega, a quiet grandmother from Guatemala, who took refuge in a Greensboro, North Carolina, church in the spring of 2017. Nearly two years later, she’s still there. Life Overtakes Me documents the families of refugee children who sink into an unresponsive sleep state as they wait to hear if they will be allowed to stay in Sweden. This “resignation syndrome” is triggered by a decidedly nonchildish existential despair.

Filmmaker Q&A following screening