Rocío

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Weaving together footage from over a quarter of a century, Rocío follows the family of undocumented Mexican immigrant and Harvard University student Dario Guerrero as they struggle to stay together in the face of his mother's terminal illness and the punishing constraints of U.S. immigration law. When news of Rocío Meneses Díaz's diagnosis with cancer forces Dario to take a leave of absence from Harvard, he returns to his family's Los Angeles home to help care for her and document the way illness profoundly transforms his family's life.

After exhausting available treatment options in the U.S., Dario makes the life-altering decision to accompany his mother to an alternative treatment center in Mexico, throwing the future of his immigration status and education into doubt. In spite of his status as a DACA recipient, Dario faces opposition from immigration authorities when he attempts to return to the U.S., culminating in a struggle for temporary humanitarian parole that garners national media attention.

Interweaving poignant scenes from childhood home movies with intimate family discussions of mortality, Guerrero crafts a narrative of migration and loss. Touching on topics ranging from the indeterminacies of immigration status, familial memory, and traditional medicine, Rocío locates the core of its emotional narrative at the intersection of private experience and political reality.

"Revel[s] in wonder, revealing death as a process not just wrenching but also magical." —Meghan Gilbride, Los Angeles Review of Books

“A film in which history and everyday life, the political and the personal, the extraordinary and the ordinary, seem to be folded into each other.” —Laura Frahm, Introduction to Media Cultural Studies co-editor and professor, Harvard University

“Deeply, daringly personal, gazing at once with intimacy and an unwavering and at times discomfiting eye at his mother, and his family, at the end of her life. A remarkable accomplishment.” —Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Leviathan co-director and professor, Harvard University

“One of the most moving and ambitious documentary film theses I’ve seen at Harvard in my many years of teaching here.” —Ross McElwee, Sherman's March director and professor, Harvard University

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

; "Rocío"; Icarus Films; immigration; family; cancer; education; Mexico; United States; politics; DACA; ; "Rocío"; Icarus Films

WEBVTT

00:09:46.377 --> 00:09:50.923
Inverted fishtail,
inverted fishtail, fishtail.

00:12:42.762 --> 00:12:43.888
Hi, Beth.
— Hi.

00:12:44.263 --> 00:12:45.848
What\'s your name?
— Andrea.

00:12:46.015 --> 00:12:47.266
I\'m Beth.

00:12:47.558 --> 00:12:49.310
I\'m Adam.
Nice to meet you.

00:12:50.561 --> 00:12:53.439
You\'ll have to watch the manual.

00:12:54.899 --> 00:12:57.443
Or like, read the manual
and watch the DVD.

00:12:59.195 --> 00:13:01.489
Because I honestly don\'t know
how to work it.

00:13:01.697 --> 00:13:03.866
My mom said it\'s super messy

00:13:03.991 --> 00:13:06.452
And it takes practice
to get used to it.

00:13:08.704 --> 00:13:13.751
In Mexico they wore caps, aprons
and everything

00:13:14.210 --> 00:13:16.128
Because the juice sprays a lot.

00:13:19.298 --> 00:13:20.341
I\'m back

00:13:20.716 --> 00:13:22.134
With a new...

00:13:23.594 --> 00:13:24.887
Juice!

00:13:25.137 --> 00:13:29.141
Now, this is no ordinary
juice-maker.

00:13:29.934 --> 00:13:32.520
It\'s a Norwalk.

00:19:14.820 --> 00:19:16.280
Take care.

00:21:03.971 --> 00:21:07.891
That was a total accident.
— You\'re doing it.

00:21:11.812 --> 00:21:15.399
Who cares, she doesn\'t need to have folded clothes anyways, right?

00:21:16.984 --> 00:21:18.360
Wait, she\'ll get mad.

00:21:21.947 --> 00:21:23.282
I\'ll help you.

00:28:14.192 --> 00:28:15.902
This is the living room area.

00:28:16.486 --> 00:28:21.199
The patients come down here. We\'ll have lectures down in this area right here.

00:28:21.825 --> 00:28:24.828
And the patients receive their IV therapies.

00:28:25.203 --> 00:28:27.622
IV chelation, IV vitamin C

00:28:27.956 --> 00:28:32.711
IV L-carnitine, IV laetrile vitamin B-17 from apricot kernels

00:28:32.919 --> 00:28:37.549
Which is a very popular therapy that\'s used down here in Mexico.

00:28:38.133 --> 00:28:40.510
Here is where we do hyperthermia.

00:28:41.386 --> 00:28:43.430
We do hyperthermia right here.

00:28:43.847 --> 00:28:50.353
It\'s well-known that cancer, viruses, and bacteria can\'t survive usually over 104 degrees

00:28:50.937 --> 00:28:54.399
So our patients have a hot tub that they go into.

00:28:55.233 --> 00:28:57.652
Every morning when people wake up

00:28:57.986 --> 00:29:01.698
You\'ll typically see our patients on the beach, walking the beach

00:29:02.407 --> 00:29:05.994
You have this one here, right around the corner there\'s another private beach

00:29:06.536 --> 00:29:11.374
But as you can see it\'s absolutely beautiful scenery

00:29:12.667 --> 00:29:15.545
Which is very important for the healing of our patients.

00:32:34.661 --> 00:32:38.498
And she said, \"I feel like S-H-I-T.\"

00:32:39.332 --> 00:32:41.042
That\'s what she said!

00:32:41.376 --> 00:32:46.297
And when we got here, that\'s what she felt like too.

00:32:46.589 --> 00:32:48.633
You know, she felt just horrible.

00:32:49.050 --> 00:32:51.970
Food wasn\'t agreeing with her mouth at all.

00:32:52.303 --> 00:32:56.307
She was used to eating this stuff and there was none of that involved.

00:32:56.641 --> 00:33:00.895
There was no flavoring and that kind of stuff that we\'re all used to.

00:33:01.312 --> 00:33:03.189
And of course she\'s sick as well.

00:33:03.648 --> 00:33:08.194
And all of a sudden you\'re putting all these juices into you with all these supplements.

00:33:09.070 --> 00:33:14.826
We\'ve all seen movies where the fighter pilots play tricks on a passenger

00:33:15.201 --> 00:33:19.205
And they do these big climbs and the G\'s are pulling on you.

00:33:19.622 --> 00:33:22.792
Well, it\'s like G-forces in your body

00:33:23.084 --> 00:33:26.337
Are just pulling on you, taking you up into Gerson therapy.

00:34:43.164 --> 00:34:46.334
What looks better, this, or this?

00:34:47.335 --> 00:34:49.420
This looks a little arrogant, doesn\'t it?

00:34:51.589 --> 00:34:53.883
Some people think that fits me better.

00:34:56.594 --> 00:35:00.181
— Well, because of the way the line of your sweater is when you do that...

00:35:00.598 --> 00:35:02.433
Yeah, it doesn\'t work on camera.

00:38:11.664 --> 00:38:15.126
If I take this and I push it
way down into my fist

00:38:16.585 --> 00:38:18.754
and I take this and
scrunch it all up

00:38:19.380 --> 00:38:20.798
Give me your hand.

00:38:21.007 --> 00:38:22.008
Close your hand up tight.

00:38:22.717 --> 00:38:23.718
Turn it over.

00:38:25.052 --> 00:38:26.053
I got nothing.
What do you got?

00:38:27.388 --> 00:38:28.389
What do you got?

00:39:58.104 --> 00:40:01.732
Dude, do you know if you\'re taking another semester off?

00:40:03.401 --> 00:40:05.903
— I don\'t know, I still don\'t have my permit...

00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:08.948
So you can\'t go back into the US?

00:40:09.240 --> 00:40:10.741
— I could try.

00:40:11.492 --> 00:40:13.035
You wet fuck.

00:52:24.224 --> 00:52:28.645
Standing atop his grandparents\' home in a gang-controlled suburb of Mexico City

00:52:28.979 --> 00:52:33.775
Darío is a long way from the lecture halls of Harvard University

00:52:34.359 --> 00:52:37.946
The third-year film student is trapped in the country he was born

00:52:38.238 --> 00:52:41.366
Told he can\'t return to the country he calls home.

00:52:44.661 --> 00:52:46.496
You know Mom loves you, right?

00:52:47.414 --> 00:52:48.665
You know that?

00:52:48.874 --> 00:52:49.875
— Yeah.

00:52:53.253 --> 00:52:54.504
A week ago...

00:52:57.090 --> 00:52:59.176
Darío was with Mom.

00:53:01.303 --> 00:53:06.725
And Mom went to sleep, and Darío went to sleep with her.

00:53:08.393 --> 00:53:10.729
Darío says that when he woke up

00:53:11.730 --> 00:53:13.398
Mom never woke up.

00:53:49.142 --> 00:53:53.188
US Citizenship and Immigration Service declared Guerrero had self-deported

00:53:53.855 --> 00:53:57.901
But the agency has now granted him temporary humanitarian parole

00:53:58.151 --> 00:54:00.320
Allowing him to come back to the US.

00:54:00.654 --> 00:54:05.033
He plans to return in less than a week and fulfill his mother\'s last request:

00:54:05.492 --> 00:54:08.328
Carry her ashes to the family\'s home in Los Angeles.

00:54:58.795 --> 00:55:03.675
I feel very fortunate for all the help I\'ve received from all the people who\'ve supported me.

00:55:03.967 --> 00:55:06.720
I\'m very grateful that I\'m about to cross into the US

00:55:06.928 --> 00:55:10.223
And solve this problem from the previous two or three months.

00:55:26.531 --> 00:55:27.991
— How\'s it feel to be back home, dude?

00:55:28.533 --> 00:55:29.451
Awesome.

00:55:29.826 --> 00:55:31.244
Good luck at Harvard, buddy.

00:55:31.536 --> 00:55:32.245
Thank you, man.