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2025

Unwelcomed

Unwelcomed captures both the vast sweep of migration across mountains and deserts, and the intimate struggles of Venezuelan refugees on foot. With aerial panoramas and close testimony, it reveals a crisis of resilience, grief and hostility. Winner, Emerging International Filmmaker Award, Hot Docs 2025.

Director

Sebastián González Mendez
Amilcar Infante

Runtime

70 Minutes

Country

Chile

Classification

Unclassified 15+

Unwelcomed maps one of the most urgent migration crises of our time. Venezuelan refugees move south across unforgiving terrain, confronting deserts, mountains and oceans in pursuit of survival.

Directors Sebastián González Mendez and Amilcar Infante render this journey with a striking dual perspective. Sweeping aerial imagery offers a sense of epic scale, while intimate testimonies bring audiences to the ground, into the lived experiences of those walking the routes. The film juxtaposes god-like panoramas of caravans tracing ridgelines and coastlines, with the fragile details of human endurance — a mother carrying her child, families navigating checkpoints, young men facing hostility at borders. What emerges is both a geographical portrait and a human one, reflecting resilience, grief, and the criminalisation of displacement.

Winner of the Emerging International Filmmaker Award at Hot Docs 2025, and an official selection of Sydney Film Festival and Sheffield DocFest, Unwelcomed is both expansive and intimate. It reveals a crisis measured not only in numbers and maps, but in the vulnerability of those who keep moving forward.

“A gut wrenching, indelibly vital look at Chile’s immigrant crisis.”

High on Films

Hot Docs - Emerging International Filmmaker, Sheffield, Sydney
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Film Credits

Director

Sebastián González Mendez & Amilcar Infante

Year

2025

Country

Chile

Language

Spanish

Subtitles

English

Type

Documentary & Feature

Program Strand

World Documentary

Producer

Sebastián González Mendez

Writer

Sebastián González MendezAmilcar Infante & Hernán Saavedra

Cinematographer

Sebastián González Mendez & Amilcar Infante

Editor

Sebastián González Mendez & Hernán Saavedra

Film Source

Amilcar Films & Jambika Docs

Genre

Documentary & Human Rights

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