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| Visitor's Day tells the story of Juan Carlos |
From our friends at AFI DOCS...
World Premiere of "Visitor's Day" Set for AFI DOCS
Visitor’s Day, the latest feature documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Nicole Opper, will premiere on Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 6:45 PM at the AFI DOCS international documentary film festival at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, located at 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, MD.
Visitor’s Day, set at IPODERAC, a home for 72 abandoned boys, tells the story of Juan Carlos, a runaway at age 10 who struggles for self-acceptance in the face of abandonment by his father. Founded in 1966, IPODERAC will celebrate it's 50th anniversary this month, the month of our world premiere. This is also the year they break ground on the first home of it's kind for girls and young women, a fact revealed in the film. The founder and various leaders of IPODERAC will be flying in from Mexico for this premiere.
For 50 years, IPODERAC (www.ipoderac.org) has helped homeless boys become self-sufficient, productive citizens of Mexico. It embodies the values of education, work and sustainability it teaches the children by operating as a social enterprise that generates 75% of its revenues from the sale of 28 varieties of artisan goat cheese.
Opper directed and produced the Emmy Award-nominated feature documentary “Off and Running” which was an Audience Favorite at Tribeca, won ten international festival awards (including Outfest) and aired on P.O.V. in 2010. Visitor’s Day, is supported by a Fulbright Fellowship, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), Chicken & Egg Pictures and The Independent Television Service (ITVS.) Nicole has produced films for The Discovery Channel and a documentary series for Here TV, and was selected for Filmmaker Magazine’s annual “25 New Faces of Independent Film.”
Director's Statement:
I first encountered the IPODERAC boys as an eighteen year old volunteer, and I knew I was witnessing something extraordinary. Eleven years later, I unearthed the journal I kept during my time there. In it, I read that I had vowed to come back and make a documentary about this place. I returned to IPODERAC to fulfill this promise and lived on the premises for a year. While this film is an intimate verite portrait of one young man growing up at IPODERAC, I see this story as a beacon of hope, a tale of redemption and a positive depiction of our neighboring country in the midst of a storm of mainstream media that continues to focus almost exclusively on drug violence and “illegal” immigration.
Visitor’s Day also will show at the AFI DOCS festival on Sunday, June 25th at 5:30 PM at the Landmark E Street Cinema at 555 11th Street, NW, Washington, DC.
Tickets are available at www.afi.com and additional information about the film is available at www.visitorsdaythefilm.com.
“Visitor's Day is an affecting portrait of a neglected boy, striving for self-acceptance and maturity.” - AFI DOCS Film Festival
