Running To Stand Still - Migrants Search For Hope In The Promised Land
Film Screening presented by Hello Neighbor, Worldwide Documentaries, and the Carnegie Museum of Art
Running To Stand Still - Migrants Search For Hope In The Promised Land
Film Screening presented by Hello Neighbor, Worldwide Documentaries, and the Carnegie Museum of Art
Hello Neighbor, Worldwide Documentaries, and the Carnegie Museum of Art present a screening of Running To Stand Still - Migrants Search For Hope In The Promised Land. The film will be introduced by Sloane Davidson, founder and CEO of Hello Neighbor, with post-film discussion between Sloane and film maker Robert Bilheimer.
About the Film
Running To Stand Still – Migrants Search For Hope In The Promised Land, is a documentary film about the humanitarian crisis on the U.S. / Mexico border. Running seeks to put a human face on the immigration “issue” by telling heartbreaking and inspiring stories about the migrants themselves—courageous and dignified human beings whose lives stand as a powerful rebuke to a narrative that is fraught with hatred, alarmist rhetoric, and dehumanizing stereotypes.
Learn more about the film here.
View the Trailer
Content Warning: sexual assault, violence
About the Director
Robert Bilheimer is the director, writer, and producer for Worldwide Documentaries, Inc, a not-for-profit film production company he founded in 1989 with his partner, longtime colleague, and executive producer Heidi Ostertag. Robert has directed critically acclaimed films for 40 years that focus—although not exclusively—on global human rights and social justice issues. In 1989, Robert was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary for Cry of Reason, a feature-length film that profiles the South African anti-apartheid leader Dr. Beyers Naudé. In 1992, Robert made the definitive film version of Nobel Laureate Samuel Beckett’s play Endgame, working from a script prepared especially by the author for the Smithsonian series Beckett Directs Beckett. In 1996, Robert also directed I’m Still Here, about families whose sons and daughters suffer from serious mental illness, especially schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Robert’s 2021 film, Oh Mercy- Searching For Hope In The Promised Land focused on the thousands of refugees and asylum seekers from Central America who waited in Mexico for their U.S. court dates and immigration hearings under the policy of Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP).
Robert’s current film Running to Stand Still- Migrants Search For Hope In The Promised Land was released in November, 2024 as a follow up to Oh Mercy. Running is a 25-minute documentary film that focuses on the fraught and divisive issue of forced migrants seeking safety and asylum at the U.S./Mexico border. Running seeks to put a human face on the realities of immigration today by telling stories about the migrants themselves: courageous, dignified human beings.
Robert was educated at the International School in Geneva, Switzerland; Hamilton College, where he received his B.A.; and Indiana University where he received his Master’s Degree in theatre and film. Before launching into his career as a documentary filmmaker, Robert worked as a freelance journalist, reporting for AFP and TIME from East and South Africa; as director in professional regional theatre, notably the Nairobi National Theatre; the Manitoba Theatre Center in Winnipeg; and the Rochester Shakespeare Theatre, which he founded. From 1968 – 1970, he also served a tour in the US Army, where he earned the Army commendation medal.
At 80, and a doting grandfather, he spends as much time as he can hiking the trails in the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York where he lives with his family and Golden Retrievers, Mia and Eli.