• Director(s):

    PRAZAN (MICHAËL)

  • Producer(s):

    FILMS DU JOUR (LES), ARTE FRANCE

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2013

  • Language(s):

    German, English, Spanish, French

  • Rights:

    TV, DVD, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD

At the turn of the 20th century, they crossed the Atlantic Ocean leaving a miserable, persecuted or uncertain existence in Europe for New York’s wide avenues, Brooklyn’s profitable gambling dens or Hollywood’s Highlights.

Like 12 millions of other emigrants, they landed on Ellis Island, first outpost of the American federal immigration station in the Upper New York Bay, ultimate gateway to the United-States of America. In those decisive hours, when their fates do not belong to them and are in someone else’s hands, where federal immigration inspectors decide who is approved and who is sent home, the Melting Pot was born, built up of the teeming masses arriving from the Old Continent.
 
Rewriting the story of some exemplary destinies for a few, among the anonymous and long-forgotten voices of the other immigrants, we will relate the greatest european tragedies of the first half of the 20th century to an ambivalent America, which welcomes through successive waves, an immigration who will recreate and embody the « American Dream ».
 
Also available in 2-part episodes (52')