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| Columbia J School Film Awarded 'Childhood Interrupted' |
| Every year thousands of children come to the United States alone and seeking asylum. They are fleeing war, torture and abuse in their homelands. They arrive here only to be held in detention centers, juvenile jails, and sometimes adult prisons. Because these children arrive without proper documents, the Immigration and Naturalization Service detains them while they wait for an immigration judge to decide their fate. In bestowing the CameraPlanet Innovation Award, CP President Steven Rosenbaum told the graduating class of the Columbia Journalism School: "This year, we gave the award for bravery. Bravery in the face of bureaucracy. At a time when many of our civil liberties are being abridged by a government that is using war-time powers, journalists need to continue to believe that it is their job to peer through the shroud of secrecy and tell the truth." "Childhood Interrupted" was produced and reported by Jennifer Ho, Erin Moriarty and Mariana van Zeller, graduate students at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Before coming to Columbia, Ho worked in documentary films for five years in the United States and Central America. Moriarty worked as a print journalist for four years in the United States and Asia, and Van Zeller worked as a broadcast journalist for three years in Europe. Through dramatic stories of children, "Childhood Interrupted" captures the experiences of the youngest and most vulnerable immigrants seeking solace on America’s shores. Jimmy Singh and Steve Eric were among the 5,000 children detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 2001. Jimmy is an abused child from India who was kept in an INS detention center for a year and a half. Steve is a war orphan from Sierra Leone who was held by the INS in an adult prison for nearly a year. The documentary also examines the current debate about INS policy and the proposed legislation, “The Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act,” that would change how the INS treats children. The bill is expected to reach the Senate floor in the fall of 2002. In 1997, a Supreme Court settlement established standards for how the INS should treat children. But the INS never formally adopted those standards. The major challenges in making this documentary were the highly restricted access to INS facilities and to child asylum seekers. The INS repeatedly denied requests to interview detained asylum seekers, while lawyers representing children were often equally reluctant. However, after months of persistence and with the help of lawyers and advocates, we found Singh and Eric. We also secured a candid interview with an INS district director and obtained first-of-its-kind access to an INS detention center for children. Although getting cameras into prisons is often difficult, we got permission to shoot in the maximum-security prison where Eric were held by the INS. In the fall of 2001, Zeller proposed to do a documentary on child asylum seekers while Moriarty proposed one on adult asylum seekers. Ho intended to a do a print project on asylum seekers. Because of their mutual interest, they formed a team. They decided to focus on child asylum seekers because no documentaries had yet been made on these children or their heartbreaking stories, which are even more compelling than those of adults. |
Contact Jeff Levinsohn
Phone: 212-779-0500 x 258
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