Dead in the Desert
Last year, an old friend of mine and I reconnected while his brother — James Counts, with whom I had been in a band years before — played a show in Tucson. Austin Counts began sharing with me this amazing story, on which he’d been working with another producer, Devlin Houser. The story, began when Austin, following up on the success of a previous documentary project “Another Side of the Border”, decided to undertake answering many of the questions raised during production.
They were about five months into production, which had begun by following the Pima County Medical Examiner, the Pima County Sheriff, and Tohono O’odham agencies as they recovered dead illegal immigrants who had perished on their attempts to enter the United States, and worked to identify them in the hopes of returning them to their families — repatriating them to Mexico posthumously. The project was extremely intriguing. Having grown up in the Arizona desert southwest, this issue had always been just a part of living here for many, including myself.
As the stories unfolded — often in ways unexpected as documentaries will — the story shifted: what started out as a story about the many migrants who perish while trying to enter illegally, turned into a story about a single unidentifiable person who’d died a tragic, horrific death, succumbing to the elements which take so many lives. The narrative began also to highlight undeniably the passion and dedication with which the investigators working for the Pima County OME strive to deliver these often nameless sons and daughters back into the arms of their families.
I signed on as a principal Producer late in 2011, thrilled to be a part of this project. This was my first production in this capacity and the experience has just been phenomenal. Working with Austin and Devlin has been fantastic, particularly the time heads down editing, cutting, grading and polishing the film with Austin. The emotional rollercoaster as, for over a year, we’ve followed this human story, never knowing where it would go and only in the end, knowing how it would all turn out, is an indication, hopefully, of the experience viewers will have. With hundreds of people dying each year in the nation’s largest illegal immigrant corridor, this story is important, timely and heart-wrenching.
I won’t spoil the film for you — after all, I want you to see it — but I can tell you that this is a fantastic human story told within the context of a hard look at one of the most egregious daily tragedies occurring in America.
Please join us for a limited screening and festival fee fundraiser on August 4th, at Sky Bar on 4th Avenue.
