Pilar Timpane is a filmmaker and media producer based in Durham, N.C. She is the co-director and producer, with Christine Delp, of the award-winning short documentary SANTUARIO (2018) which follows Juana Luz Tobar Ortega, the first woman to take sanctuary in North Carolina in the recent movement. Visit santuariofilm.com for more information. More of her work can be found at pilartimpane.com.
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The Miracle of Migration
These retablos reflect on the faith that people had to begin the journey of migration, entering a foreign land. Often leaving family and home into the unknown, on a journey that is fraught with peril but also promise. Young fathers and mothers, children of families who will pray for them daily as they go. As the exhibit description mentioned, these retablos "depict a side of migration usually not told in statistical reports or even in detailed interviews of migrants."
After Samuel Oliver-Bruno's Deportation, a Sanctuary Community Suffers Together
A group of Samuel Oliver-Bruno's supporters. Photo by Pilar Timpane.
The space of Samuel Oliver-Bruno’s “home” while in sanctuary is filled with signs he thought he’d return from a biometrics appointment at U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) in Morrisville, N.C., scheduled at the immigration control office’s request. His work on construction projects around the basement at the CityWell church in Durham, N.C., seems stalled in time. Painting supplies, clothes, other personal items stilled exactly as he left them, where he was working diligently just days before his life was altered irrevocably. A prayer room he helped to build is silent.