Center for the Humanities film on NH refugee stories will premiere in Laconia & Manchester

The Center for the Humanities at the University of New Hampshire has produced a documentary film on the lives of refugees in the Granite State. Uprooted: Heartache and Hope will on Tuesday, November 16 at 7 p.m. at the Laconia Middle School and on Thursday, November 18 at 7 p.m. at the New Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester. A panel discussion will follow both screenings, which are free and open to the public.

Funded through the Humanities Council's three-year project, Fences& Neighbors: New Hampshire's Immigration Stories, this 30-minute documentary follows the stories of five resettled refugees as they tell their very personal stories of war, persecution, refugee camps, and remaking their lives in New Hampshire. Umija and Rasim Gusinac, Udai Baskota, Zahara Mahitula, and Manuf Mahmood come from different countries and backgrounds, but they are all part of the most recent chapter in New Hampshire's ongoing population narrative. A panel discussion will follow the screening.

The film is the first in a series of documentaries based on oral histories collected by the UNH Center for the Humanities for a project called Our State, Our Stories. This project aims to understand how the experiences of New Hampshire's most recent newcomers connect with those of past immigrants.

Major funding for the Fences & Neighbors project was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Endowment for Health and TransCanada.

For more information, visit the UNH Center for the Humanities website or call 862-4356.