| 9500 Liberty director to attend screening | | Print | |
 The arrival of Annabel Park's documentary, 9500 Liberty, is perfectly timed.As the nation debates Arizona's new law that requires police officers to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect might be in the US illegally, 9500 Liberty informs us that this has been tried before. In 2007, commissioners in Prince William County, Va., a suburb of Washington, passed such a law amid a climate of intolerance, division and fear. The county police chief opposed the law, saying that additional training and personnel would cost his department $14 million. He worried that without proper training the law's "probable cause" mandate would lead to racial profiling. 9500 Liberty documents the 10-month "culture war" that divided Prince William County from passage of the bill until it went into effect in March 2008. Parks produced and directed the film with her boyfriend, Eric Byler. It is a bare bones documentary that first took shape on YouTube as Parks and Byler uploaded pieces of it during filming. As such, the film and the filmmakers became part of the battle over immigration in Prince William County. Though it is clear from the beginning where the filmmakers' sympathies lie, 9500 Liberty is a dispassionate, fact-based and surprisingly even-handed account. No wonder the film has won a number of awards, including the audience award and special jury award at the South by Southwest Film Festival. Though anti-immigrant fervor was fed by political opportunists and rampant bigotry, we get a sense early on of some of the changes in the community (gang activity and over-burdened schools among them) that caused long-time residents to resent the presence of the newcomers. The film also shows the price paid by individuals and the community for passing of the anti-immigrant law. One price was economic. Latino workers and families had flocked to the prosperous country because of the opportunities presented by its growth. As undocumented immigrants fled in the wake of the law, local businesses suffered. The entire country was hurt by the housing meltdown, but Prince William County was particularly hard hit because of departing immigrants. Parks was born in Korea but grew up in Houston. She will attend the movie's screening 7:20 p.m. Friday at the Angelika Film Center. The movie will be presented in English with Spanish subtitles. |