Forward

Original title Adelante

Adelante invites the audience into St. Patrick’s Church just outside of Philadelphia, and through portraying the lives of selected individuals – a remarkable Irish priest, young Mexican immigrants and older Irish parishioners – the films shows how disparate communities in Norristown, PA, have made mutual adjustments in order to create meaningful and heartfelt bonds of friendship and understanding. We see American parishioners from this once moribund church learning to accept and ultimately embrace this new group of Immigrants who bring new life to their church and community. We also witness the expectant joy of immigrant families establishing new lives in an unfamiliar, at times bewildering, country that offers their children more opportunities, while also observing the painful compromises caused by leaving behind family and support networks. Ultimately we see these two groups interact in harmony with each other and come to understand and rejoice in each other’s lives.

Author/s Noam Osband

An anthropologist and filmmaker, his prior work includes co- producing, co- editing, and filming Sobresalir, a documentary about immigrant parents’ navigating the American public school system, and Searcy County, a documentary about a cattle auction in Arkansas that has appeared in over 15 festivals. His first feature length documentary, Adelante is about Mexican immigration to a historically Irish Catholic church outside of Philadelphia. This year, he has begun shooting a feature- length documentary about Mexican guest workers in the southeast United States, a film that will serve as the first documentary film ever submitted for a PhD at the University of Pennsylvania.

Research Stanton Wortham
Photography Noam Osband
Sound Noam Osband
Editing Noam Osband