Bisbee ’17
Directed by Robert Greene
USA | 2018 | Hybrid Doc | 112 min
Film Source: 4th Row Films
Awards / premier festivals: Sundance
Sponsor: Lisa Schamberg
The title of Bisbee ’17 is twofold. In 1917, in the copper-mining town of Bisbee, Arizona, more than 1,000 striking miners — mostly migrant workers from Mexico and Eastern Europe — were illegally and violently deported to the New Mexico desert by a posse led by Cochise County Sheriff Harry C. Wheeler. In 2017, director Robert Greene staged a recreation of the Bisbee Deportation, with local residents playing the parts of the deporters and deportees. Seamlessly blending interviews with stylized reenactments, Bisbee ’17 brings history into the present tense and serves as a potent commentary on the present-day immigration policies of the Trump administration. ~LB
