Farmingville

A provocative, heartbreaking film, Farmingville examines the conflict that engulfed a working-class Long Island town when the community became a haven for 1,500 illegal Mexican immigrants. Things get progressively colder when one of the Mexican men kills a local woman while driving drunk, and two laborers are nearly murdered during a vicious hate crime. What makes Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini's documentary so effective is its sense of fairness to all parties. The illegals are shown largely to be hard workers willing to sacrifice for the American dream. And longtime locals are depicted not as a bunch of kooks but concerned citizens worried about the security of the community they love.