Immigration Nation: Who are Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz?
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Immigration Nation is the topical new documentary series on Netflix. The shocking six-part series comes from Emmy award-winning filmmaking duo Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz. Express.co.uk has everything you need to know.
Who are Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz?
Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz are the directors behind the six-part series Immigration Nation.
The pair spent three years filming the work of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the Trump era and the effects the president’s immigration policies have on refugees.
The filmmakers followed specific individuals, both those who are undocumented and documented migrants, those who have experienced family separation and those who have been deported as a result of the immigration laws.
Immigration National also follows the work of charities and organisations who fight to protect victims of ICE such as the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) of North Carolina and The Resilience Force.
READ MORE Immigration Nation Netflix release date
Directors Clusiau and Schwarz, who are a couple, also appear in the documentary, discussing the impact of what they saw as they filmed over the years had on them.
Clusiau and Schwarz are the co-founders of the Emmy award-winning production company Reel Peak Films and have directed and produced several projects together for Netflix, TIME, CNN, Discovery, National Geographic and The New Yorker.
Their work has also appeared at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals amongst many others.
Outside of Immigration Nation, the duo is best known for the documentary series Trophy and A Year in Space, both of which won Emmy Awards.
Trophy examined poaching and wildlife conservation in Africa, while A Year in Space followed two astronauts on a record-setting mission to see if humans have the endurance to survive a flight to Mars.
Both documentaries by Clusiau and Schwarz are streaming on Netflix now.
Schwarz is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, cinematographer and photojournalist based in Brooklyn.
His credits include Narco Cultura, Aida’s Secrets, Trophy, Unnatural Selection and his photography work appears regularly in Time magazine and
National Geographic.
Clusiau is a documentarian and cinematographer based in Brooklyn.
Her credits also include Trophy, which premiered at Sundance in 2017, A Year in Space and Unnatural Selection.
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Clusiau spoke to Variety ahead of the documentary-series release about the filming process, which took place between 2017 and 2020.
She said: “We would spend hours in the car with them, as they’re doing surveillance or driving from place to place.
“Once you start talking to a person as a human, you start to understand more where they’re coming from in their job.
“And I think under this political climate and the way that things are in the nation, the ones who are boots-on-the-ground have a really hard job to do.
“I think a lot grapple with it. Some agree with the policies, some don’t; there’s a big spectrum there.”
Schwartz added: “Has it been a dark three years? Yes, definitely. Does it break your heart? More than I can ever tell you in words.
“We can’t stop caring about this, that’s my opinion. We’re destroying so many lives, and it’s almost un-American.
“Our heritage is a nation of immigrants; we all — unless you’re a Native American — came here one way or another, and a lot of them came with papers but some didn’t.
“We came believing this country had some values, and I think it’s part of the beauty of the American dream really.
“That’s been challenged, and these people hurt. We are historically better than this.”
Speaking to the New York Times ahead of the show’s release, Clusiau and Schwarz revealed they faced demands from ICE to delete scenes and delay broadcast of the documentary until after the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
Schwarz said: “Experiencing them [ICE] is painful and scary and intimidating and at the same time angering and makes you want to fight to do the story.”
Ahead of the new series release, Jenny L. Burke, the press secretary for ICE, said the agency is “shocked by the mis-characterizations made by the production company” and “wholeheartedly disputes the allegations brought forward by filmmakers of this production”.
Viewers have taken to Twitter to praise Clusiau and Schwarz work.
One viewer tweeted: “When people ask, ‘Why can’t immigrants do things the right way?’ I cannot fathom the ignorance of that question. Please go watch #ImmigrationNation on Netflix and educate yourself on the injustice and inhumane actions our country take on vulnerable people. #AbolishICE.”
A second viewer said: “Please take the time to watch this documentary and educate yourself on the injustice and inhumane acts that take place in immigration detention centres that Trump doesn’t want you to know about #ImmigrationNation.”
A third viewer commented: “I’m only a few minutes in and I’m disgusted by ICE, someone took a video of an immigrant they detained and laughed at him. I’m close to tears already Everyone needs to watch this on Netflix #ImmigrationNation.”
Immigration Nation is streaming on Netflix now
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