Deportado (2012)

“How can you put down roots in the land of your roots? This seemingly paradoxical question applies to the expelled from the United States, where they have lived as American residents sometimes from their early childhood, and who suddenly rediscover the land of their Azorean ancestors due to “double penalty”.

Deportado explores the consequences of a 1996 change in US law that authorizes the automatic expulsion of prisoners, even though they are hardly informed of this when the prosecution encourages them to plead guilty. Yet, Nathalie Mansoux never goes down the path of the argumentative documentary. The force of her film lies in the staggering contrast between the open, almost idyllic landscapes of the Portuguese archipelago and the absence of a horizon offering the former detainees a future. A tourist guide, “energy workshop” and antidepressants galore at home, everything seems programmed to make them forget the invisible bars. But the emptiness recreated by the framing and editing along with the moments of suspended time that intimate their mental indolence gives us an acutely physical sense of the archaic nature of this expulsion. Deprived of the family network that was present when they were in prison, Deportado’s Luso-Americans are painfully reminiscent of the outcasts of Ancient Greece.” [taken from https://pro.festivalscope.com/film/deportado]

“In 2011, the USA deported some 400,000 migrants, a historical record. Although the majority of these deportees are undocumented migrants from Central America, who were arrested at the Mexican border, many of the deported immigrants are long term permanent legal residents—deported as a result of felony convictions, for minor crimes in many cases.

One group of migrants who such deportations have tragically affected are from the Azores Islands. Every year Azorean migrants from North America are deported back to their birthplace in the 9 island mid-Atlantic Portuguese archipelago.

Mainly men who left the islands with their families in search of a new life in America at a very young age, the deportees were raised in the USA. After their forced return to the Azores, most have few memories of the island on which they were born, barely speaking Portuguese in most cases. With few expectations for finding a home, a job, or a wife, their lives wilt away in assistance centers.

Lost in faraway memories, abandoned hopes and the physical and emotional distance from their loved ones, what is an island paradise for some remains an open sky jail for the deportees.” [taken from http://terratreme.pt/terratremeEN.html]