The ICE documentary as chilling as a horror movie: ‘We’re trying to put the audience in a position of terror’

Film-makers Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller’s new short is an unvarnished portrait of ICE-occupied Minneapolis Get Out . The Texas Chainsaw Massacre . The Purge . All three films build on an august tradition of using horror as a Trojan horse to comment on the social, poli

Film-makers Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller’s new short is an unvarnished portrait of ICE-occupied Minneapolis Get Out . The Texas Chainsaw Massacre . The Purge .

All three films build on an august tradition of using horror as a Trojan horse to comment on the social, political and racial anxieties of their day. They’re Here, a new documentary featured in this year’s New York film festival , flips the script. Directed by Rachel Lauren Mueller , a film-maker and journalist, and Laura Poitras , Academy award-winner, the 24-minute film employs horror tropes to re-examine the surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) officers in Minneapolis last winter.

“For film-makers and journalists, there’s a great sense of responsibility in these moments when they arise,” said Mueller, a Minneapolis resident. “This is my neighborhood. It was my community.

It was very clear to me what my role in this moment would be.” Framed as a dystopian story set in an urban tundra, They’re Here follows the Trump administration’s border control campaign in Minnesota – officially dubbed Operation Metro Surge . Over the course of three winter months, the Department of Homeland Security moved to remove the Twin Cities’ Somali immigrant population and destabilize its progressive political order. The documentary takes in the wanton shock-and-awe campaign and scales it down to the battlefield, following Minneapolis residents as they evade and resist ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents – obscuring the residents’ identities for protection.

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