Well-Founded Fear

Plot Summary

Evocative, captivating and utterly unforgettable, the critically acclaimed Sundance Film Festival hit Well-Founded Fear candidly explores the proceedings behind the American political asylum system. Who is deemed worthy of political asylum in the United States? Who decides? And why? An unprecedented inside look at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), award-winning filmmakers Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini take their cameras behind locked doors, where bureaucrats decide the fates of thousands of asylum-seekers each year. To be granted asylum, applicants must demonstrate a "well-founded fear" that their lives would be endangered were they to be deported. The asylum-seekers are at once hopeful and heartbreaking, at times too slick and polished, and in other cases painfully timid. All have the same desire -- freedom to stay in America. As asylum officers struggle to determine credibility, balancing sympathy with good sense and tough-mindedness, their hard-made decisions ultimately hold a mirror to the broader, quickly changing, and controversial role of the United States in the world at large.