Transposing Mark Twain's immortal anti-racist novel to 2017, "Huckleberry Finn: A Close Place" depicts the friendship that forms between a poor Missouri boy and an undocumented immigrant as they drift down the Mississippi River on a makeshift raft in pursuit of freedom.

Director Biography - Frank Tovar

Frank Tovar was born in Chicago, where he completed his bachelor's degree in English literature at the University of Illinois. Tovar credits his love of books and movies to an automobile accident that left him bedridden for much of his eighth year, like Roddy McDowall's character in his favorite film HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY. Tovar has previously directed three music videos for the indie band the black watch as well as four narrative short films, for which he was credited under the name Frank Victor Weinert. "Huckleberry Finn: A Close Place" is the first work for which Tovar has assumed the surname of his Cuban immigrant mother.

Director Statement

In addition to its treatment of a poor Missouri boy escaping his physically abusive father and psychologically abusive guardians, “Huckleberry Finn: A Close Place” (our modern adaptation of Mark Twain’s immortal anti-racist novel) deals with the plight of an undocumented immigrant in America—I felt especially compelled by this subject matter not only because of my conviction that the defense of immigrants and refugees is the most important human-rights battle of our time but also because of my personal perspective as the son of an immigrant and the beneficiary of a more compassionate immigration policy in America.

Furthermore, the country that our character Jimal comes from, Somalia, was one of the seven countries targeted by the Trump administration's cruel, Islamophobic travel ban. In fact, in 2017—the first year of Trump's presidency and the year in which our film takes place—there was a spike in the number of immigrants escaping the US by crossing the border "illegally" into Canada in order to claim asylum, the largest numbers coming from Africa, with migrants from Somalia and other countries in the Horn of Africa figuring most prominently. Terrified of being deported to countries plagued by war and extreme poverty, many migrants made the dangerous trek by foot across the Canadian border in freezing temperatures, some of them losing fingers and toes to frostbite. Tragically, a woman from Ghana, Mavis Otuteye, died of hypothermia less than a mile from the Canadian border in Minnesota.

Our film was made in a spirit of defiance against this appalling status quo. What has animated my need to tell this story is my total and unequivocal support for and solidarity with undocumented workers and my conviction that no human being is “illegal.”

In defending Trump's cruel immigration policy of separating families—a policy that has inflicted irreparable psychological damage on children—former Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited a Bible verse that historically had been used to defend slavery, saying in a speech to law enforcement officers, “Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.”

In opposition to this reactionary historical period in which we're living, I offer the words of Twain scholar Justin Kaplan: “I think anyone who responds to Huckleberry Finn’s own conflicts of conscience at heart will never again be able to accept as moral absolutes the conventional wisdom of a particular time and place.”