★★★★

Embedded with a number of young children in a Tijuana, Mexico children’s shelter as they await a decision on their asylum requests, Far Away from Home (Lejos de Casa) is an eye-opening documentary from Carlos Hernández Vásquez. 

Shot in a mix of a cinéma vérité format and with direct interviews with the children themselves, we begin with three young boys playing with toy cars and replicating their efforts to cross the United States/Mexico border. Soon, we see Hernández Vásquez humanize and debunk many of the rampant theories which have been perpetuated in the media when it comes to identifying people seeking asylum in our country.

In focusing on children, Hernández Vásquez could have been manipulative and heavy-handed. Thankfully he’s not, and to his credit, he steps back and lets the young people he captures on film appear comfortably and as themselves. Some recap their stories, others seek to establish a place within a makeshift community as they wait on a decision regarding their future - often for an indeterminate length of time.  

It is hard to not see the misconceptions and inflammatory rhetoric dissolve before our eyes as shelter workers develop activities and try and build a sense of community with children awaiting their individual fate. Lost in the conversation is that when people reach this point, they may never return home. In a pool of as many as 19,000 children who apply for asylum each year, these children almost cease becoming people and are instead just names and numbers in a human lottery that seems to lack consistent rules or routine.

Ultimately, the film provides as much insight as it informs. Hernández Vásquez has stated in interviews that he was surprised to learn that large groups of children are in the shelters. He expected to see some children and lots of the potentially dangerous men so often talked about in the media. After gaining the children’s trust and reconfiguring his project to better match what he saw, Far Away from Home (Lejos de Casa) began to take shape and become a different film than the director anticipated. 

Even if the film feels a little bit padded at 80 minutes, Hernández Vásquez offers a unique film that asks for, if not demands us to all remain open and affirming to the realities which face an increasingly youthful migrant community.

Far Away from Home (Lejos de Casa) was viewed as part of the hybrid 2023 Children’s Film Festival Seattle, hosted by Northwest Film Forum. The film is presented in person on February 5, 2023, and available virtually, for the duration of the festival, from February 3-12, 2023.