''Which Way Home'' is a 2009 documentary film directed by

Rebecca Cammisa Rebecca Cammisa (born 9 July 1966) is an American documentary filmmaker two-times Oscar nominated, Emmy award winner, and founder of Documentress Films. Her first film ''Sister Helen'' (2002), aired on HBO, won the 2002 Sundance Film Festival ...

. The film follows several children who are attempting to get from

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

and

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, on top of a

freight train Rail freight transport is the use of rail transport, railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers. A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of Railroad car#Freight cars, freight cars (US) or goods wagon ...

that crosses

known as "La Bestia" (The Beast). Cammisa received a Fulbright Scholar Grant to make the documentary in 2006. The film premiered on HBO on August 24, 2009.

Synopsis

Each year, thousands of Latin American migrants travel hundreds of miles to the United States, with many making their way on the tops of freight trains. Roughly five percent of those traveling alone are children. As the United States continues to debate immigration reform, the documentary Which Way Home looks the issue through the eyes of children who face the harrowing journey with enormous courage and resourcefulness.

Characters

*Kevin: A fourteen-year-old boy trying to reach America to be able to support his mother back in Honduras. He also leaves attempting to leave his step-father, with whom he has a bad relationship. Eventually, he finds out that life there is equally difficult in different ways. *Fito: A thirteen-year-old boy trying to find work in America. He leaves his hometown in Honduras with Kevin, also hoping to find a better life away from his grandmother and absent mother. *Yurico ("El Perro"): A seventeen-year-old boy, who leaves

Chiapas Chiapas (; Tzotzil and Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 124 municipalities ...

in hopes of finding a family that will adopt him in the US. Having no family, he lives on the streets begging in Chiapas and strikes up a close friendship with Fito on the journey to the border. He struggles with an addiction to huffing glue. *Juan Carlos: A thirteen-year-old boy from Over the Rainbow who leaves his mother to try and find work in America. He is abandoned by his father, and attempts to reach New York, where his father went. *Olga and Freddy: Two friends on a journey to cross the border to find their family. Olga travels to Minnesota to find her mother while Freddy travels to Illinois to find his father. They were both ages nine years old traveling from Honduras to the US.

Reception

Critical response

''Which Way Home'' has an approval rating of 100% on

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website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, based on 8 reviews, and an average rating of 7.79/10.

Awards and nominations

Won

*Emmy, 2010 - Outstanding Informational Programming-Long Form

Nominated

*Academy Award 2010 - Best Documentary Feature *Spirit Award 2010 - Best DocumentarySpirit Awards website
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Soundtrack

An excerpt from the soundtrack (heard at 0:07:10 and again at 1:06:00) by James Lavino has been adopted by the

Turner Classic Movies Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of ...

network to accompany the introduction trailer to feature film presentations in 2016.

References

External links

*
''Which Way Home'' on HBO
* * * http://whichwayhome.net/awards.html 2009 films 2000s English-language films 2000s Spanish-language films 2009 documentary films American documentary films Documentary films about illegal immigration to the United States Mr. Mudd films Documentary films about children Documentary films about rail transport 2009 multilingual films American multilingual films 2000s American films {{bio-documentary-film-stub