01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, June 8, 2006

BY MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal Arts Writer

You couldn't ask for more of a current hot-button issue than illegal immigration and so Crossing Arizona turns out to be the timeliest film showing at this week's Newport International Film Festival.

Considering the touchiness of the topic and the ire it has stirred on both sides, filmmakers Joseph Mathew and Dan DeVivo have come up with an incredibly balanced documentary. They give equal time to both sides in the battle over illegal immigration, from the ranchers, whose land is violated, to the immigrants themselves, who cross the Arizona desert, sometimes in searing 100-degree-plus heat to work at low-wage jobs in hopes of a better life for their families.

Crossing Arizona is a provocative movie. Yet, no matter which side of the issue you are on going in, you're certain to come out questioning yourself and even the motives of some of those you may agree with. For instance, we discover that one of the things driving the border crossings is the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has flooded Mexico with cheap rice and beans from the U.S. and Canada, thus undercutting the livelihood of the Mexican farmers.

In the end, the only thing both sides can agree on is that the current U.S. policy does not work.

We're told that more than 1,000 people have died since the mid 1990s, when high border fences were constructed at the most popular crossing points -- at San Deigo, Calif., and near El Paso, Texas. Since then the coyotes, who ferry illegal immigrants to the border in their vans, have gone offtrack, to the roadless routes leading into the desert. There the illegals are dropped off without any idea of where they are or how far it is to the next town. Some die of thirst or are killed by wild beasts.

We're introduced to people who try to help the crossers, setting up way stations with water-filled jugs and food, including a Native American who sets out water on barren tribal lands. We meet members of the U.S. Border Patrol who are waging a fruitless, neverending battle against the increasing hordes. We meet the ranchers, who complain bitterly that the illegals trash their lands, cut their fences, sometimes shoot up the area and even kill their cattle. We meet volunteers in the Civil Homeland Defense and Minuteman projects, who stage border protests and go out at night into the brush to corral some of the illegals.

We also meet some of the illegals themselves, picking peppers in a big field, and the farmer who says he couldn't get his crops in if it weren't for the illegals. In one of Crossing Arizona's most poignant moments, the camera finds an illegal Mexican wandering on a lonely road. He's offered water by the Native American Samaritan, who speaks to him in Spanish and hears his sad story: how he was separated from the rest of his group; how he has no idea where he is; how he had hoped to get to Phoenix to make enough money for his wife's surgery back in Mexico; how he has a houseful of kids. Sadly, the Indian tells him that if he gives the man a ride, the Border Patrol will throw him into jail. He advises the man to just keep walking along the road until the Border Patrol comes by and picks him up.

Mathew and DeVivo do a high-wire act, trying to give both sides a voice. Some of the film is quite emotional, especially the graphic shots of people who died in the desert and were attacked by wild animals. Crossing Arizona is not always easy to watch and it's even less easy to come to a definitive conclusion given the myriad of facts.

Crossing Arizona will play at 4 p.m. tomorrow at the Opera House 1 and 6 p.m. Saturday at the Newport Art Museum as part of the Newport International Film Festival. Tickets are $10 at the festival box office, 17 Touro St.

mjanuson@projo.com / 401-277-7276

****

Crossing Arizona

Rated: Not rated, contains adult themes, unsettling images.