Debate Magazine

Illegal Jose Antonio Vargas Organizing a Film Festival – Centering on Immigrants – in Iowa Before Caucuses

By Eowyn @DrEowyn

“Journalist” and now “filmmaker” Jose Antonio Vargas is an illegal, gay, Filipino American who was born in the Philippines and raised in the US since the age of 12. He is the founder of Define American, a nonprofit organization intended to open up dialog about the criteria people use to determine who is an American. He has said: “I am an American. I just don’t have the right papers.”

He’s also a racist. He believes he’s above the law of the land. Which is why democrats and Hollyweird love him.

Illegal Jose Antonio Vargas

Illegal Jose Antonio Vargas

The Hollywood Reporter has a fluff piece about how Vargas and Hollyweird filmmakers are trying to bring illegal immigration to the forefront of the next presidential election by organizing a last-minute film festival in the Hawkeye State.

Vargas’ Define American Film Festival will open on January 21 in with the Oscar-nominated film A Better Life. The film’s director Chris Weitz will be in attendance along with Demián Bichir (who appears in the cop-hater‘s movie, The Hateful Eight), who was nominated for best actor for playing an undocumented illegal worker.

Various movies will be screened. After each film, the filmmakers, immigration experts, cast members and local journalists will hold a panel discussion. That should be an intellectual gabfest!

“We think of the Define American Film Festival as an essential way to humanize a very political and partisan issue of immigration, and an opportunity to celebrate immigrants in Iowa, documented and undocumented illegal,” Vargas told The Hollywood Reporter. “All eyes will be in Iowa because of the caucuses and there’s no better place to host our inaugural film festival than in Des Moines.”

And in true victimhood fashion, Vargas said, “When I listen to the candidates, it’s hard to believe they are talking about actual human beings. It’s like they’re talking about insects. It’s very inhumane.” (Sounds like he’s describing Planned Parenthood.)

Christ Weitz/AP Photo

Christ Weitz/AP Photo

And here’s the real reason for the film festival: they all despise Donald Trump. Weitz told THR that he hopes the festival will provide a humanizing counterpoint to the GOP’s campaign rhetoric, which has veered sharply to the right since Donald Trump entered the race describing undocumented Mexican newcomers as “rapists” and “thieves” and vowing to construct a wall along the United States’ southern border. Weitz’ Twitter timeline if full of anti-Trump tweets.

And after all of his rhetoric on Trump, Weitz states, “There is room for all kinds of opinions on immigration. The solution will be achieved on both sides of the aisle, but the first step has to be in viewing immigrants as human beings. When you watch a film, it’s very hard to view that person on the screen as ‘the other.’ A film is an empathy machine.

DCG


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