Oscilloscope Acquires Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra’s Genre-Defying ‘The Infiltrators’
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EXCLUSIVE: Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired U.S. rights to the critically acclaimed immigration feature The Infiltrators. Directed by Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra, the film made its world premiere earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival where it went on to won the Audience Award: NEXT and the NEXT Innovator Prize. Oscilloscope is set to release the feature in theaters before streaming on digital platforms.
The Infiltrators is a very timely docu-thriller that tells the true story of young immigrants who get detained by Border Patrol, and put in a shadowy for-profit detention center — on purpose. Marco (Maynor Alvarado) and Viri (Vida‘s Chelsea Rendon) are members of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, a group of radical Dreamers who are on a mission to stop deportations. And the best place to stop deportations, they believe, is in detention. However, when they try to pull off a prison break in reverse, things don’t go according to plan. The film weaves together documentary footage of the real infiltrators with re-enactments of the events inside the detention center to tell an incredible true story in a fresh, genre-defying cinematic language.
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“Many films have focused on the suffering of immigrants in America, but we wanted to tell a different story—one not of victims, but of visionaries,” said Rivera and Ibarra. “The infiltration of the Broward detention center was a story of an immigrant-led rebellion, and to tell it we had to cross cinematic borders, bending the documentary form in ways we’d never seen before. This film was years in the making, and we’re thrilled to work with the team at Oscilloscope to finally share it with audiences.”
O-Scope’s Dan Berger adds, “Each day we’re greeted with yet more absurd bullshit from a garbage Administration hell-bent on making life harder for those who need help the most. The National Immigrant Youth Alliance are undoubtedly the most important superheroes to grace cinema screens this year and Alex and Cristina have translated their story in a masterfully creative way. Demonstrating both the power of cinema and the artistry of filmmaking in equal measure, The Infiltrators is a profoundly necessary film for this time.”
The Infiltrators was optioned earlier this year by Blumhouse Television to adapt into a scripted series. Jenniffer Gomez (Vida, Black Sails, Sacred Lies) will write and produce the adaptation.
The feature also stars Manuel Uriza, Juan Gabriel Pareja and Vik Sahay. It was produced by Ibarra and Rivera along with Darren Dean and Daniel J. Chalfen. It is also a presentation of Chicago Media Project. The Infiltrators was executive produced by Steve Cohen, Paula Froehle, Lagralane Group, Christina Nolan, Ken Nolan, Ken Pelletier, Katy Drake Bettner, Nancy Blachman, Jim Butterworth, and Good Gravy Fund; and was co-produced by Sarah Garrahan, Mark Mathis, and Carla Hool. Paradigm negotiated the sale on behalf of the filmmakers.
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