A short film drew audible gasps Wednesday at the 117th NAACP National Conference in Chicago. Hide & Seek is the story of a queer, immigrant family seen through the eyes of a child. The film contributed a thoughtful perspective to the conversation of how immigration laws and enforcement affects families.
Filmmakers Allison Oddman, who uses she/they pronouns, and Clive Anthony Thompson were awarded the top prize in the NAACP’s Cinematic Shorts Competition. Housed under the Hollywood Bureau of the NAACP, the annual contest brings emerging storytellers together to film a project over a five-day period in the host city of the convention.
TRiiBE Co-founder and filmmaker Morgan Elise Johnson sat down with Oddman and Thompson after the film’s screening.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity:
The TRiiBE: How did this film come together for the NAACP’s Cinematic Shorts Competition?
Clive Anthony Thompson: They basically paired us in groups, and Allison and I were paired together. We immediately hopped on a phone call and got to know each other, our backgrounds in film, and just our general interests. As we were talking, we realized we both shared Jamaican heritage, and we wanted to do something [around] immigration. So we were bouncing ideas back and forth, and landed on the idea of showing the point of view of detention at the hands of ICE agents through the eyes of a child.
We had to present our script to the NAACP, and they would give us notes and feedback. They also connected us with groups such as Define American, who further was able to provide consultation in helping us ensure that we were presenting this story in a way that was reflective of immigrant lives in a positive light.
The TRiiBE: Talk about the decision to show this experience through the eyes of a child.
Allison Oddman: I think that decision was rooted in children often being the most vulnerable, invisible and marginalized members of society. I also think children have an innate innocence that we wanted to play with in the development of this film. Having a child unknowingly be in a situation where his parents are detained, but being wrapped up in his naivete and joy of play, as a way to showcase the harsh conditions of detainment, anti-immigration policy, and the inhumanity of ripping families apart.
Clive Anthony Thompson: In addition to that, we decided to use point of view [filming technique] in a couple of the shots to further portray looking through the character’s eyes.
The TRiiBE: It’s striking when you’re seeing the ICE agent for the first time. You’re seeing it through the eyes of the child. Why was it so important to show a Black family dealing with this?
Allison Oddman: Within the U.S., immigration is often not seen as an issue that’s prominent within the Black community. Both of us being from Caribbean backgrounds, we have a very intimate understanding of liberation for people, and for Black people specifically, looking like global solidarity — Pan-Africanism, international communities, coming together and being able to see the different ways Blackness is attacked and made vulnerable.
Growing up in South Florida, and Clive growing up in the Northeast, we’ve grown up around a lot of immigrant communities, and have always had a deep understanding of how important immigrants are to America’s cultural and societal fabric. So, making this film and having the opportunity for it to screen at the NAACP convention was just a great platform for emphasizing that this is very much a Black issue at its core.
Clive Anthony Thompson: There are a lot of Black immigrants who are targeted. My parents were facing a deportation order around 2017. They spent 843 days in a sanctuary church, trying to escape an unjust deportation. That goes to show you that it is a Black issue at its core.
The TRiiBE: Can you talk about the role Chicago played in inspiring this story?
Allison Oddman: So, how the cinematic shorts competition works is that the filmmaking teams have to shoot and edit their films in the city that the convention is taking place in for that year. This year was Chicago
We immediately tried to familiarize ourselves with the Black immigrant landscape of Chicago. We looked at “Operation Midway Blitz” as a starting point. We ended up shooting on location at a house in the Auburn Gresham area of Chicago, and it was really beautiful having that community open up their homes to us. We shot in a house that had three generations of family living there for the past 70 years.
Clive Anthony Thompson: I would just add that Mayor Brandon Johnson has also been very outspoken when it comes to ICE as well. That’s something I was also looking at when we started to make the story, to see what the atmosphere and the feelings were here towards ICE in general. There was a story I was researching where ICE agents raided this [South Shore] apartment complex. They detained a lot of parents, but also children.
The TRiiBE: What do you hope the impact of this project will be, and where can people view it?
Allison Oddman: For folks to view immigration as not just the issue of one specific ethnic group, but being something diverse, that Black communities interface with as well. I hope that people also like to walk away from this film humanizing the statistics that are shown in the news cycle of people and children who are being detained by ICE.
Click the play button below to watch the film, screening provided by the NAACP.
