La Ciudad [1999, 88 minutes] “is as relevant today [2015] as it was 16 years ago because, for undocumented immigrants in the United States, almost nothing has changed. They still live under a kind of informal apartheid, enduring the most miserable conditions without complaint, for fear of deportation…. Each of the film’s four short sections took more than a year to make because, rather than simply write a script and cast actors, Riker spent months building trust with, say, undocumented restaurant workers and collaborating with them to make a short film about their lives.” From “Immigrant Dreams: The Enduring Power of David Riker’s ‘La Ciudad’ by Marcela Valdes, published in The Intercept on 6 June 2015.
September 13, 1998