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Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Sanctuary city or not, fear and lost federal funding knows no borders
This story was reported by MassLive and its news partner, El Planeta. Rumors whipped through Revere as police responded to a car crash on Shirley Avenue earlier this year. Was the law enforcement presence an immigration enforcement raid, one woman asked as she stopped into Chocolaffee, a nearby cafe. Unsure and anxious, the woman detoured a mile in the opposite direction on her way to work that day, Diana Cardona, who owns the business with her sister Angelica, said. The mood among immigrants in neighboring Chelsea is no less restless. Children huddle after school in Tanairi Garcia's cafe, Aloe Natural, agonizing in hushed voices over rumors that immigration agents were spotted in neighborhoods where their parents work or live. Some duck into the bathroom and leave in tears, Garcia, a Chelsea city councilor, said. Four months into the second Trump administration, fear pervades immigrant communities, shared alike by people without documentation and those with protected status, work or student visas, and other paperwork allowing them to reside in the United States. While some cities, including Chelsea, have declared themselves 'sanctuaries' for undocumented immigrants, pledging not to participate in federal immigration enforcement, such promises do not lift the dread of deportation from their residents' shoulders. 'The fear does not end at the boundary of the city,' said state Sen. Sal DiDomenico, a Democrat representing Chelsea and nearby communities. Nor are immigrants the only ones on edge. Chelsea is one of several Massachusetts cities in the crosshairs of the federal government as it moves to pull any federal funding from 'sanctuary jurisdictions,' cuts that would affect services and city projects benefiting citizens and immigrants alike. For Chelsea, that penalty could be steep, according to a lawsuit the city filed to protect its funding stream. The city received $14.5 million directly from the federal government last fiscal year and anticipates receiving $8.5 million this year, it said. The municipal budget is $245 million, more than half of which goes to the schools. Of Chelsea's 38,000 residents, 45% are foreign-born — the largest portion of any city in Massachusetts — and 70% speak a language besides English at home. More than one in five residents lives below the poverty line. In the densely populated working-class community just north of Boston, every dollar matters. Similar anxieties reverberate through Revere, Chelsea's neighbor to the northeast, where roughly 43% of its 58,000 residents were born outside the U.S. Though not declared a sanctuary city nor under the direct microscope of the federal government, Revere still risks the loss of some federal dollars. And its undocumented residents have the same shadow hanging over their heads as President Donald Trump looks to cash in on a campaign pledge of nationwide mass deportations. 'It doesn't matter the city, the fear is the same,' said Angelica Cardona, of Revere, who arrived in the United States undocumented in 1993, but today is an U.S. citizen. In Chelsea, authorities say the sanctuary policy allows all people to feel comfortable interacting with police and city officials in emergencies, health episodes and even mundane issues. If residents, undocumented immigrants included, feel that calling police and coming forward to provide information won't lead to their deportation, that makes the city safer, advocates for sanctuary city policies argue. Chelsea has a moral responsibility to protect and provide for all its residents, regardless of immigration status, Garcia says. 'Why should they fear to take their child to school?' she asked. Still, she worries for her community if the sanctuary policy costs Chelsea its federal assistance. Some funding cuts will hit the Chelsea Police Department, which the city said in legal filings regularly receives federal money for equipment such as bulletproof vests. Other cuts will drain resources from programs for drug treatment and enforcement, or supporting crime victims and witnesses. A downtown revitalization project, the largest in decades, is at risk of losing a $2 million federal grant. More than $4 million from a federal program to inject funding into low-income school districts could disappear as well. 'We're already an overcrowded city,' Garcia said. 'Our classrooms will be more crowded and lose money.' Yet if asked to approve Chelsea's sanctuary city policy today, she would still vote in support, knowing what it could mean for the city's future. 'Everything has a domino effect, good and bad,' she said, adding, 'With or without the federal grants, I think as a community, we will make it work.' Todd Taylor, a Chelsea city councilor, is not as confident. He thinks the city's lawsuit against the federal government over funding cuts 'paints a giant target' on Chelsea's back. Taylor has long opposed the city's sanctuary city designation. He sympathizes with immigrants, like his wife and mother, who arrived in the U.S. seeking freedom and opportunity, he said in a statement after the city filed the lawsuit. The country 'has always needed immigration,' he said, but in 'an orderly, measured system' that doesn't risk 'unprecedented costs for our state and city budgets.' 'We are already facing a fragile financial position,' Taylor said. 'We should not risk our ability to protect our residents, pave our roads and educate our children just to make a political statement.' Cities without sanctuary policies are also not immune from the vast cuts to federal spending. Early last month, the Trump administration yanked $106 million in pandemic-era education funding from more than 20 Massachusetts school districts, Revere among them, that they had until next year to spend. Revere risks losing more than $4.6 million, a hefty portion of which the city planned to spend on air quality improvements in school buildings, City Councilor Juan Pablo Jaramillo said. There's no reason that the city should be targeted, he said. 'It's not about immigrants, documented or otherwise.' 'That's without us being even a sanctuary city,' he added. The city could suffer in other ways as well. The Trump administration's mass deportation push could upend years of work by city officials to build trust with undocumented residents, injecting a wariness of public institutions into the community that will be difficult to unroot, Jaramillo said. 'People will stop calling the police,' he fears. 'Folks who may be sick and maybe need attention … may not go to the hospital.' 'There's not going to be a single locality in this country that will not suffer in the services that they'll provide because of the distrust that this administration, this federal administration, has placed on working-class communities like Revere,' he said. In 2000, at age 7, Jaramillo came to the U.S. from Colombia with his parents, lacking legal status to live in the country. Today, they are U.S. citizens. But once, while Jaramillo was growing up, he recalled, their home in Revere was robbed while the family was out. When they returned home to find the place ransacked, Jaramillo pressed his parents to call the police. He did not grasp at the time why they refused. 'The real fear came from feeling unsafe from the public safety apparatus,' he said. 'Who do you go to when someone breaks into your house?' If undocumented residents come to fear authorities, he worries what it could mean for any city, sanctuary or not. In five years, when the U.S. seeks an accurate count of people living in the country through the next Census, undocumented immigrants need to trust that speaking with a Census worker will not lead to their deportation, Jaramillo said. If they don't, cities could end up with far fewer firefighters, police officers and funding than their populations demand. Revere Mayor Patrick Keefe Jr. declined an interview request for this story. So did Chelsea City Manager Fidel Maltez. Both Chelsea and Revere have long histories as landing grounds for new immigrants seeking a better life in the United States. Chris Giannino, a Revere city councilor and retired police officer, said his family arrived in the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At the time, Revere was welcoming a wave of Italian immigrants. Different ethnic groups arrived over the years — Irish, European Jews, Cambodians and Laotians, North Africans and Latinos, Giannino said. Today, Revere remains a diverse city. When the holidays roll around, Giannino said his street comes alive with the different sights, sounds and tastes of his neighbors' cultures. Revere has 'always been a gateway for different communities to come here,' he said. So has Chelsea, said Gladys Vega, head of the Chelsea social services organization La Colaborativa and Garcia's aunt. 'Chelsea has always been a city that welcomed immigrants — Polish, Italian, German, Jewish — and now Latinos,' she said. 'We've always been a small city that opened its doors to newcomers.' One of them is Lesly, a young mother who arrived in the U.S two years ago without documentation. To her, Chelsea certainly feels safer than Guatemala, where gang members threatened to kill her and her son over a conflict with the boy's father, she said. When Lesly, whose full name is being withheld to protect her identity, needed to call the Chelsea Police to report a threat to her safety, the officer she met spoke Spanish. He didn't ask about her immigration status, but explained her rights as an immigrant and helped her file a report. When she felt afraid to leave home, the department offered to drive by and keep watch for trouble. The trust with police provides residents protection, Lesly said in Spanish to a bilingual reporter, 'no matter their immigration status.' The Chelsea Police Department focuses on developing partnerships and trust through community policing 'that encourage all residents, regardless of status, to feel safe reporting crimes, seeking assistance, and engaging with our department,' Chelsea Police Chief Keith Houghton wrote in an emailed statement. 'We are proud of the positive relationships we've built across our diverse community, which are rooted in trust, transparency and a shared commitment to public safety.' Sanctuary city or not, all towns and cities in Massachusetts are bound by legal precedent that prevents full coordination between local police and federal immigration authorities. The Supreme Judicial Court, the state's high court, held in 2017 that police cannot detain someone based solely on a request of the federal government, absent a judicial warrant. Like other sanctuary cities, Chelsea Police policy also bars officers from asking about a person's immigration status. Unless there is a threat to public safety, the department does not concern itself with immigration issues. Some people have a mistaken perception that in sanctuary cities, criminals can find safe harbor from prosecution, Vega said. That's a myth, she said. Living in a sanctuary city does not provide a shield of immunity from the jurisdiction of the federal government, numerous ICE arrests in Chelsea, Somerville, Boston and other sanctuary communities show. As in other sanctuary cities, the Chelsea Police do not interfere with immigration-related arrests carried out by the federal government. Nor does city policy prevent the department from collaborating with federal officials on pressing public safety matters, such as investigations into drug trafficking or violent crime. 'If there's a criminal, we want them out of our community just like anyone else,' Vega said. 'Sanctuary city never meant protecting those who break the law. We just want safe communities.' In January, Fox News broadcast clips of a series of ICE raids that began outside a Chelsea Market Basket. The operation focused on people who posed a threat to public safety, an ICE spokesperson said. Yet while sweeping one apartment, agents happened upon a man whom they had not targeted, but who was in the U.S. illegally. They took him into custody as well. The arrests cast a 'severe chill' over Chelsea and neighboring communities, the city said in its lawsuit targeting the federal funding cuts, as everyday residents feared going to work, school, church — even the local Market Basket. 'It kind of makes me sad that they feel that way. They feel targeted,' Angelica Cardona said. Most undocumented immigrants 'are just regular working people trying to make it day by day.' Trump can revoke protected status of 350K migrants, Supreme Court says 'Are you threatening me?': Video displays Worcester councilor's confrontation with police Worcester releases body cam footage of woman's arrest by ICE agents Worcester to release body camera footage of police response to ICE arrest Rümeysa Öztürk chose grace over bitterness. What we can learn | John L. Micek Read the original article on MassLive.
RTÉ News
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Chloë Sevigny's Magic Farm is a vivid but slightly underbaked comedy
Magic Farm, Argentine-Spanish filmmaker Amalia Ulman's second feature after 2021's El Planeta, is a vivid, wacky, convincingly performed but slightly underbaked culture-clash comedy. A team of obnoxious, self-absorbed American filmmakers, who make attention-grabbing, off-kilter online videos, head off to a rural town in Argentina to interview a bunny ear-wearing musician who has gone viral. The only thing is, due to poor communication and lazy research, they've landed in the wrong South American country. Desperate to save their reputations and make good on the considerable expense of hustling this quintet of content creators to such a remote location, they set about grilling the locals about potential stories to shoot, all the while ignorantly ignoring the enormous health crisis story under their noses. The team is headed up by jaded presenter Edna (Chloë Sevigny) and her slimy producer-husband Dave (Simon Rex), who soon hurriedly returns to New York to deal with an icky legal issue. Edna is left to pick up the pieces alongside her three young crew members - the inept, whiny producer Jeff (Alex Wolff), impressively coiffed and sweet sound guy Justin (Joe Apollonio) and steadfast cameraperson Elena, played by Ulman herself, who is both the only Spanish-speaking member of the group and the only one who seems to have her head on her shoulders. They team up with the kindly hostel manager (Guillermo Jacubowicz), connected local woman Popa (Valeria Lois) and her beautiful, chronically online adult daughter Manchi (Camila del Campo) to try and concoct a story. While Magic Farm is breezily watchable, aided by the pleasingly lurid cinematography, perfectly pitched performances and occasional zingy one-liners, there's a sense that we never get to scratch the surface of any of the characters. In a somewhat underwritten role, Sevigny brings a stoic resignedness to Edna, Wolff is transformed as a hot-mess ladies man and Apollonio and Jacubowicz bring a tenderness to their sweet and unexpected bond. Some genuine moments poke through the absurdist, deadpan humour, and the intermittent gimmicky camerawork gives the proceedings an enjoyably trippy feel, there's a sense Magic Farm never quite fulfills its considerable potential.
Los Angeles Times
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
In ‘Magic Farm,' viral video makers go off the grid but can't escape the algorithm
The prickly comedy 'Magic Farm' is a trip to rural Argentina that feels like flipping through a carousel of ironic souvenir postcards. The latest bit of mischief by filmmaker Amalia Ulman ('El Planeta'), it's about how making the world smaller hasn't widened our curiosity as much as shrunk it into snarky bites — in short, it's about going everywhere and seeing nothing. Chloë Sevigny plays Edna, the host of a globe-trotting web series that seeks out human interest stories: Bolivian teenage exorcists, Mexican fashionistas in scimitar-shaped boots and now, a singer called Super Carlitos who dresses like a bunny and bops around a village called San Cristobal. The joke is that Edna and her production staff are fundamentally close-minded. Crew members Elena (Ulman), Jeff (Alex Wolff), Justin (Joe Apollonio) and Dave (Simon Rex) claim they make documentaries, but they really only want catchy headlines and traffic. (It may remind you of Vice Magazine, which covered the same Mexican footwear trend in a 2011 article titled 'Look at These F— Boots!') The film's own director, however, is a sharp and clever social critic who investigates insincerity. Ulman is something of an online anthropologist-slash-modern artist. Her 2014 breakout took place on Instagram, where she spent months pretending to be an aspiring L.A. 'It' girl — even faking a boob job — for a three-act tragedy she later called 'Excellences & Perfections.' Her pieces operate on three levels: the superficial, the sarcastic and, buried deep beneath those, an outrage that she holds tight to her chest. Fluent in posturing and hypocrisy, Ulman looks like an influencer and thinks like Luis Buñuel. She's always sniffing out the scam. Ulman also acts in 'Magic Farm' as Edna's producer, Elena, with a biography parallel to her own: Argentinian-born, Spanish-raised, cool and detached. Elena comes across as the most together, but what looks like serenity is actually disdain. As the only team member who speaks Spanish, Elena is aware that only she can keep the others from looking like the idiots that they are. She's often too lazy to bother. In her absence, Rex's Dave pleads at a desk clerk, 'Do you have vape charger para aquí?' The Super Carlito expedition is doomed to failure. The group isn't just in the wrong town — they're in the wrong country. (As is the way of things, Jeff dumps the blame on an offscreen intern he's schtupping.) Adding to the confusion, their on-site contact Marita (Abuela Marita) has disappeared, possibly in connection with her apocalyptic Christian temple. No one thinks to poke into this with a follow-up question like, 'She thinks the world is going to end? When?' Instead, these American Americans, as the Yankees call themselves, are distracted by the personal dramas they bring to this poor farmland. Justin, a sunny Dirk Diggler clone, has daddy issues that mushroom into a crush on Guillermo Jacubowicz's nameless hotel receptionist, a humble single father. Meanwhile, narcissistic heartbreaker Jeff snags the attention of San Cristobal's resident glamour girl Manchi (Camila del Campo), who spends her nights taking selfies for OnlyFans and her days scaling trees to get enough cell service to send them to her subscribers. It would be a mistake to assume the locals are victims. Their polite English only makes them sound accommodating — they've all got their own secrets and desires. Plus, the language gap works in Jeff's favor, with Manchi fantasizing about him in bed while she tunes into his voice on a podcast, pleasantly oblivious to how he's prattling on about a bad sushi dinner. Jacubowicz and Del Campo are amazing discoveries. He has the tender, shining eyes of an ingenue while Del Campo, who has a striking birthmark on her cheek, is a femme fatale able to hold her own against Wolff's selfish, useless playboy. Flopping around like a boiled noodle, Wolff should be too big for the movie. His performance is the loudest thing in it by an amplitude of 10. (When Edna accuses Jeff of taking too much of the horse tranquilizer ketamine, he whines, 'Maybe I am a pony!') But he and Ulman are having so much fun making fun of Jeff and the faux-woke wastrels he represents that his squawking nonsense comes to harmonize with Burke Battelle's score, a funky cacophony of synthesizers that sounds like someone bouncing on a duck. None of these journalists believe they're serving a higher purpose other than content farming. But Ulman has strung together a net of interesting observations: glances, insults, mistaken presumptions and gaslighting fibs. Nearly all of her characters — including the locals — are spending too much energy creating things for online consumption. They're all tangled up in a worldwide web. Every scene has a delight: Manchi stabbing balloons with a knife, Edna's out-of-place cloven-toed high heels, the lilt in Justin's voice as he smiles at a street mutt and says, 'What's up, dog?' Cinematographer Carlos Rigo and editor Arturo Sosa groove along with eye-catching colors and skateboard-video-style visuals, even inserting B-roll from a camera strapped to a horse's head and doing a dramatic zoom to a sheep. You might wonder if the acid-neon grass is too green. These pseudo-reporters won't notice. Pay attention to everything they ignore — the buzzing airplanes out of view, the offerings of bottled soda instead of water, the casual background conversations about cancer and death — and you'll spot that Ulman has seeded another story underneath her comic surface, one about how the people in this town are getting crushed by big business and bad government. It turns out there's plenty worth covering in San Cristobal. But Ulman is too skeptical to suggest these yahoos could redeem themselves by ferreting out the real problems happening in her home country. She has zero faith in their interest in real news and not much more in our own. What's the point of telling the truth if no one will click on it? And how smart to hide her own sincerity inside this marvelous romp.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Amalia Ulman's ‘Magic Farm', ‘Blue Sun Palace', ‘April' Meet Pink Floyd & Mozart In Rich Indie Weekend
The indie box office offers a half dozen strong debuts from buy El Planeta's Amalia Ulman to Venice Special Jury Prize winner to Cannes Critics Week award- winner Sony Pictures Classics leads moderate releases with with a remastered rerelease of and Mozart's . takes a big leap to 1,700 screens. Limited release indies: Mubi debuts Ulman's comedy comedy starring Chloë Sevigny, Alex Wolff, Joe Apolloino, and Simon Rex at the Angelika Film Center in New York. World premiered at Sundance, screened at the Berlin Film Festival and was the opening night film of the Los Angeles Festival of Movies earlier this month. When a misguided American documentary crew in search of their next viral segment ends up in the wrong town in rural Argentina, chaos ensues. As they collaborate with locals to fake a new music trend, unexpected relationships form and an unfolding health crisis becomes apparent in a surreal send-up of the media. More from Deadline 'Sinners' Poised To Out-Number 'The Accountant 2' At Weekend Box Office - Preview Faith-Based 'The King Of Kings', 'The Chosen' With Hatsune Miku Anime, 'Pride & Prejudice' Re-Release Indie Standouts Easter Weekend - Specialty Box Office 'The Shrouds' Is A Milestone For Distributor Sideshow: "We're All Pinching Ourselves We Get To Work" With David Cronenberg - Specialty Preview Metrograph Pictures' , the Luca Guadagnino-produced sophomore feature from Dea Kulumbegashvili (Beginning), which won the Venice Special Jury Prize, opens at the Film Forum and Film at Lincoln Center, with the director in person for several Q&As. Follows on May 2, with more markets added May 9 and beyond. enters on Nina, a skilled obstetrician in Georgia (the Eastern European country), who finds herself accused of malpractice after a newborn dies during delivery. The investigation she faces threatens to reveal her secret practice of providing abortions to women in the surrounding played TIFF, NYFF, LF, and Sundance. Constance Tsang's drama , winner of the French Touch Prize at Critics' Week at the Cannes Film Festival 2024 (Deadline review here) is playing the American Cinematheque in LA and the Metrograph in NY. Both sold out weeks in advance — as were two as part of the New Directors/New Films festival in NYC earlier this month. The Metrograph has added a second week. The Monica came on boad late to accommodate demand. This is Dekanalog's biggest release ever and its well on the way to 30-50 runs with the distributor planning a gradual nationwide in coming months beginning with San Francisco and Atlanta next weekend. Lee Kang-sheng alongside Ke-xi Wu and Xu Haixpeng star as three Chinese immigrants living in Flushing, Queens — he's a construction worker, they are employees of a massage parlor they dream of being able to leave — whose routine lives and relationships are changed forever following a tragic Lunar New Year incident. Chinese American first-time feature filmmaker and actress Ke-Xi Wu are supporting the opening weekend by appearing for multiple Q&As. They will be in LA for a post-film Q&A at American Cinematheque, moderated by director Andrew Ahn, whose Wedding Banquet is currently in theatres. and will be appearing for Friday and Saturday Q&As at Metrograph, with Friday night's conversation moderated by director Ramin Bahrani (The White Tiger), and Saturday's moderated by director Savanah Leaf (Earth Mama). IFC Films' crime thriller debuts limited 15 theaters. Directed by Duncan Skiles and starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jack Quaid, Malin Ackerman. When a mentally ill young man thinks he witnesses an abduction and the police refuse to believe him, he reluctantly turns to his next door neighbor — a bitter retired security guard — to help him find the missing woman. Moderate releases: Sony Pictures Classics' stars at 555 theaters Directed by Daniel Minahan, written by Bryce Kaas and starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter, Diego Calva and Sasha Calle. Premiered at TIFF, see Deadline review. Muriel and her husband Lee are beginning a bright new life in California when he returns from the Korean War. But their newfound stability is upended by the arrival of Lee's charismatic brother, Julius, a wayward gambler with a secret past. A dangerous love triangle quickly forms. When Julius takes off in search of the young card cheat he's fallen for, Muriel's longing for something more propels her into a secret life of her own. Sony Music Vision and Trafalgar Releasing are back this weekend with , the groundbreaking 1972 film directed by Adrian Maben digitally re-mastered in 4K from the original 35mm footage and with enhanced audio newly mixed by Steven Wilson. What its distributors are calling the definitive version of this pioneering film will be on 654 screens including Imax in North America. It was no. 3 at the domestic box office opening night with a strong start pushing $1.3 million domestic. Internationally, the film grossed $1.7 million last night, taking top three box office position in the U.K, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. The current worldwide tally is just over $3 million. The live album will be available for the first time on vinyl on May 2 and is available for pre-order. The Metropolitan Opera's 2024–25 Live in HD season continues with Mozart's Le Nozze on Saturday at 1 pm ET on 700 screens domestic (1,800 worldwide) from Fathom Entertainment. The specialty distributor will offer two encores on Wednesday, April 30 at 1 pm and 6:30 pm local time. Conductor Joana Mallwitz makes her company debut with the return of Mozart's comic masterpiece. Leading an ensemble cast in their Met role debuts, bass-baritone Michael Sumuel and soprano Olga Kulchynska star as the clever valet Figaro and his betrothed, the wily maid Susanna. Baritone Joshua Hopkins joins as the skirt-chasing Count Almaviva, with soprano Federica Lombardi as the compassionate Countess. Mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce completes the distinguished principal cast as the mischievous page Cherubino. Notable expansion: A24's Sundance premiering fantasy adventure jumps from 4 screens to 1,700 in week 2. Written and director by Isaiah Saxon, starring Helena Zengel and Finn Wolfhard with Emily Watson and Willem Dafoe. In a remote village on the island of Carpathia, a shy farm girl named Yuri is raised to fear an elusive animal species known as ochi. But when Yuri discovers a wounded baby ochi has been left behind, she escapes on a quest to bring him home. Deadline review. Best of Deadline Everything We Know About Netflix's 'The Thursday Murder Club' So Far TV Show Book Adaptations Arriving In 2025 So Far Which Colleen Hoover Books Are Becoming Movies? 'Verity,' 'Reminders Of Him' & 'Regretting You' Will Join 'It Ends With Us'
New York Times
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Magic Farm' Review: A Droll Delight
A New York City documentary crew sets up shop in rural Argentina in 'Magic Farm,' an Americans-abroad satire that teeters between pop treat and indie trifle. It is the second feature from the writer, director and actress Amalia Ulman ('El Planeta'), who across her work shows a knack for droll humor, a soft spot for pretenders and a penchant for play. The story follows Justin (Joe Apollonio) and Elena (Ulman), crew members hoping to salvage a TV segment about quirky subcultures after a gaffe lands them in the wrong country. In the movie, Ulman makes use of a more famous cast — including Chloë Sevigny as a vexed TV anchor — although it is the film's lesser-known actors who stand out. Apollonio, as a man-child with a crush, is a wry delight, as is the newcomer Camila del Campo, who plays a pouting local coquette. Ingeniously simmering under the folly is a health crisis that has afflicted the agricultural area for decades. This is the film's joke: If the crew could only get their heads out of their rears, they would uncover a gonzo documentary gold mine. At points, 'Magic Farm' idles so heavily that one wonders whether Ulman suffered her own preproduction blunder, stranding her cast and crew in South America without the material to back up her vision. But by pairing the loose subject matter with a curlicued visual style — at one point, she straps the camera to a dog's head — Ulman suggests that she knows what she's doing.
