Search Film, Company, People...

ASYLUM

By Li CHENG

MEDIAFUSION ENTERTAINMENT - as PROD / FIN

Road movie - Development 2024

Fleeing their country, Carmen and her mother join the Caravan of migrants and find themselves separated, with no hope to reuniting.

- Year of production
- 2024
- Genres
- Road movie, Social issues, Drama
- Countries
- MEXICO, FRANCE, SPAIN
- Languages
- SPANISH, ENGLISH
- Budget
- 1 - 3 M$
- Duration
- 90 mn
- Director(s)
- Li CHENG
- Writer(s)
- Carol GOMEZ-ROBELO, Li CHENG
- Producer(s)
- Carol BIDAULT DE L'ISLE (MEDIAFUSION ENTERTAINMENT), George F. ROBERSON
- Synopsis
- This Social Impact Drama/Adventure is inspired by true events & starts in 2018 after the arrival of one of the Central American migrant caravans. CAROL MURRAY, 60’s, a near retirement, Jewish social worker at a camp near the U.S./ Mexico Border, devotes her time to reunite the separated migrant families. One of the “lost” children, 10 year old CARMEN, is too traumatized to give the social workers enough information to understand what has happened to her & how to reunited her with her mother. While napping, Carmen is startled awake by the security guards banging on the bars, barking orders to corral the children from their large cell & herd them on a bus to transfer them to another detention center. While in transit, one of the other children on the bus, RAOUL, 11 & Carmen escape, they try to swim across the river, but Raoul is caught by a strong current & drowns. Carmen is able to swim back to shore, where she is found hiding & hurt by an Latin American Army Engineer, SUSANA RUSSELL from Louisiana, 40’s, who takes her to the nearby immigrant center.
  
  Meanwhile, CONSUELO MARTINEZ, 30’s, Carmen’s mother feverishly looks for her. She has connected with as many organizations as she can: Border Angels, ACLU, The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, Grannies Respond, Veteran Service Corps, Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, seeking answers to the whereabouts of her little girl. Susana who speaks very little Spanish, has recently been assigned to this post & understands that it is best to try to “foster” Carmen so she can be released from the “cages” of detention. Carmen is ordered to testify in a courtroom, alone, without legal representation, without understanding English, nor the court proceedings, until a lawyer appointed by Susana is able to intercede & motion for temporary custody. In another courtroom, in another camp, Consuelo also is ordered to appear in court, she has secured a legal aide that explains in Spanish to the Court the horrific circumstances that lead her to flee Honduras with her daughter. FLASHBACK: Consuelo worked in a maquiladora, married to a truck worker, with two children FRANCISCO, 14 & Carmen, 10. The Mara Salvatrucha, one of the most dangerous gangs in Honduras, broke into their home, demanded money, killed her son & her husband for failing to pay the money. Consuelo & her daughter were able to escape, joined the caravan with the hope of making it to Louisiana where her brother lives. She recounts the journey mostly on foot, which took 5 months to reach the border between Mexico & US at Piedras Negras. There they sought asylum but were incarcerated & separated from her daughter, no questions asked, no way of identifying her as Carmen’s mother, no arm bracelet, no information. Since then, she has been sent from camp to camp, feeling more & more hopeless in finding her daughter. Despite her emotional testimony & the danger to her in being sent back, the judge orders her to be deported. Contact us for Act III
- Partners & financing
- Serein Productions (France) MediaFusion Entertainment (USA)
  
  Seeking Co-Producers from Mexico & Spain
- Production schedule
- Pre-Prod - December 2023
  Production - April 2024
  Post Production - July 2024
  Delivery - September 2024
- Beginning of shooting
- Apr 01, 2024
- End of shooting
- Jul 16, 2024