From ABC News and the directors and producers of the critically acclaimed 2019 documentary film After Parkland comes the documentary short Asylum, which provides an intimate look at the dreams, prayers and realities of two Honduran fathers seeking refuge in the U.S.
- In January 2019, as the number of asylum seekers at the U.S. border ballooned, generating headlines and heated debates across the country, directors Emily Taguchi, Jake Lefferman and a team of ABC News Nightline producers set out to tell the human stories behind the divisive issue and the difficult road to asylum in the United States.
- After premiering at the St. Louis International Film Festival in November 2020 and screening at AmDocs and the Sarasota Film Festival in 2021, where programmers praised its intimacy and “unflinching humanity,” Asylum will make its streaming debut on Hulu on Friday, October 1.
- Asylum chronicles the journeys of Angel Ramos and Elmer Gomez, two fathers who fled Honduras in search of the American dream after facing murder attempts and threats on their children’s lives.
- For over a year, the filmmakers captured rare and intimate moments along the fathers’ journeys for asylum in the United States.
- They follow Angel, who lives in fear of deportation, which in his mind equates to certain death at the hands of Honduran gangs, as he awaits his court date in Missouri. He puts on a brave face for his toddler son and tries to give him the life he dreamed of. Elmer’s journey to the U.S. was not only to seek asylum but to reunite with his daughter, who was separated from him in the hands of U.S. immigration authorities during a previous attempt to enter the country. As the former police officer makes his way to the border to request asylum, he is detained, and the opportunity of seeing his daughter again or finding refuge for his family seems out of reach.
- Asylum was directed by Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman and produced by Steven Baker and Jeanmarie Condon.