A Documentary Film by Paul Kakert and Colleen Bradford Krantz.
Available October 12, 2010 – Now Taking DVD Pre-Orders

Synopsis

When the bodies of eleven Central Americans and Mexicans were found inside a freight car in Denison, Iowa, the nation took notice. Reporters descended on the small farming community, searching for information about how and why this group ended up inside a locked railcar, where they would die horrific deaths.

Byron in Guatemala
 
The documentary, “Train to Nowhere; Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation,” offers an honest, yet compassionate look at the 2002 deaths of the eleven undocumented immigrants. It takes the viewers from the streets of southern Texas, to the hills of a Guatemalan farm, to the Iowa town where the bodies were found.
 
The film is part crime story, part immigration perspective. The film breaks free of the standard immigration story, however, in examining the case from various viewpoints: that of one victim's New York brother, a long-time immigration agent, and a train conductor imprisoned for working with the smugglers who locked the railcar to throw off U.S. Border Patrol inspectors. Viewers will see beyond the superficial levels of the people involved in the story and understand the complexities of their personalities and the situation. The older brother from Guatemala, once an undocumented immigrant himself, struggles with anger and, sometimes, guilt. Even though he urged his little brother to remain in Central America, his own financial success showed the younger man what could be achieved. The immigration agent, who traveled north as a boy with his migrant farm worker grandfather and father, believes in strict border control yet often encounters those who question his loyalty to the United States because of his Mexican heritage. The former train conductor, once paid to help slip people into the United States by train, argues he was trying to help the immigrants gain a chance at better lives. This is a crime story that also illustrates how immigration is such a complex issue, far from black and white.
Reviews:
Cut Open Grain Hopper “I thought it was very powerful, in a way that I didn’t anticipate. I was very much drawn in by the characters … As filmmakers, you’ve chosen a distance to the material that I think is just right. If this were presented from the POV of an advocate (either a pro or a con) no one would really listen – the film would be viewed through prejudiced eyes, unconsciously. I had never really thought of that before: The best way to truly communicate anything concerning immigration requires a certain distance from the field of battle. It sounds paradoxical, but to really get people to connect deeply with this topic, you have to maintain a bit of distance in that respect. I think you gauged it right.”
– Monte Reel, author of “The Last of the Tribe: The Epic Quest
to Save a Lone Man in the Amazon.”
“Your film is excellent, haunting and intriguing. My 13-year-old was telling her friends about it at school this morning. This story needs to get out to people. What an incredibly thorough job you did and … very even- handed. I myself, a humanitarian, went back and forth on the issue as I was watching it with [my daughter]. This film led us into much thought. We discussed the Mexican students in her classes and the social issues they have here, we discussed the life that the Guatemalans had/have back home and how the house they live in isn’t all that bad with its stone walls, cattle, trees in the hills, and lovely pastoral setting.
We discussed the draw of America and the capitalist life here; how that can pull a kid away from his simple (yet lovely) life with his mother to go for the big truck and apartment and big money that his brother had in the US. It is all so sad.”
– Ramona Gaylord,
Research Biologist and Science Educator
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