THE FILM IN CONTEXT
The Broken Cycle is a hybrid short film — blending narrative and experimental elements — that explores the role of the immigrant within the socioeconomic system they become a part of. Conceived for USC’s Media for Social Change course in Fall 2024, just before the U.S. presidential elections and the change in administration, it began as a speculative portrayal of a possible scenario but has, unfortunately, come to reflect the reality faced by many immigrant families.
The film presents a sequence of tableaux vivants that narrate the journey of anonymous individuals through a labor selection system. The delivery of a gray overall and a number marks the beginning of the loss of identity and the symbolic transformation into an “immigrant.” From there, each scene contrasts the priorities of the workers with those of a society that rarely fully recognizes them.
In a garden, for example, a woman serves tea to the workers in the rain. What appears to be a kind gesture reveals, in its absurd execution, the gap between intention and actual need. The tea cools, it dilutes, and the act becomes a symbol of naïve solutions offered from a place of privilege. Later, on a beach, a baby forms an emotional bond with an immigrant, inviting us to question, through its innocent impartiality, the origins of racial prejudice. The following scenes depict the workers’ presence as barely acknowledged, and ultimately erased, suggesting the final stage of an increasingly fractured disconnection.
The factory tableau, unlike the others, serves as a direct reference to the “melting pot” metaphor and the country’s multicultural foundation. Placed at the beginning, it sets the tone for the cycle of living pictures, grounding them in collective remembrance.
The piece seeks to present the immigrant as an essential part of the social fabric, not through conflict but through reflection, searching within the subtle rendering of its themes for a path to understanding and a more unifying form of resolution.