Portland Documentary & eXperimental Film Festival

They say there are only two stories in the world: man goes on a journey, and stranger comes to town.

"Stranger Comes to Town" re-works animations from the Department of Homeland Security, combining them with stories from the border, impressions from the on-line game World of Warcraft, and journeys via Google Earth to tell a tale of bodies moving through lands familiar and strange. Through the stories of six different people who have entered the U.S. as foreigners, Goss focuses on the questions and examinations used to establish identity at the border, and how these processes in turn affect one’s own sense of self and view of the world.

The core of this haunting meditation on war, land, the Bible, and filmmaking is a portrait of Revital Ohayon, an Israeli filmmaker and mother killed in a terrorist act on a kibbutz near the West Bank. Avoiding easy political polarizations, the film is structured around an exchange of letters between Sachs and her Israeli friend Nir Zats. Together, they reveal Revital’s story through her films, news reports, and interviews, culminating in heartbreaking footage of children discussing the violence they’ve witnessed and an unforgettable visit with Ohayon’s grieving family. Without taking sides or casting blame, States of UnBelonging becomes a cine-essay on fear and filmmaking, tragedy and transformation, violence and the land of Israel/Palestine.

A quiet observation of the moral ambiguities at work in a story from the frontlines, excerpted from Chaplin Major Eric Olson’s audio diary.