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Hyde Park's FDR Library Announces Films For Winter Documentary Series

HYDE PARK, N.Y. -- The Pare Lorentz Center at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library will present its winter documentary film series, “Immigration, Migration and the American Dream,” on Saturday, Feb. 6, beginning at 3 p.m.

The FDR Library in Hyde Park is screening four documentaries on Feb. 6.

The FDR Library in Hyde Park is screening four documentaries on Feb. 6.

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The event will include the screening of four films that address the themes of immigration and migration, focusing on the plight of the worker from the Great Depression to the present day.

Between films, professor and critic Seth Shire of CUNY will offer commentary and engage the audience in discussion.

The program will be held in the Henry A. Wallace Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home.

Seating is first-come, first-served. The event is free and open to the public.

The films begin with Pare Lorentz's “The Plow That Broke the Plains,” a 1936 film with a running time of 28 minutes that examines the Dust Bowl and New Deal programs to combat its effects.

The documentary will be paired with a new 7-minute film biography of Lorentz, who was considered FDR’s documentary filmmaker.

At 4 p.m., the 2004 film “Farmingville,” a PBS Point of View featured work, will be presented.

The 79-minute film, which examines the expanding population of illegal immigrants in a suburban Long Island community and the fallout after two laborers become victims of a hate crime, challenges viewers to define the American dream.

After a break from 6 to 7 p.m., “The Immigrant,” a 1917 silent short starring Charlie Chaplin, will be shown.

The 22- minute romantic comedy chronicles the misadventures of an immigrant coming to the United States.

The final movie, 2014's “The Overnighters,” is a Sundance special jury award-winning film directed by Jesse Moss.

The 90-minute documentary engages universal societal and economic themes such as the promise and limits of reinvention, redemption and compassion, as well as the tension between the moral imperative “Love thy neighbor” and the resistance that one small community feels when confronted by a surge of desperate, job-seeking strangers.

For more information about the Library or its programs, call (800) 337-8474 or click here.

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