Filmmakers will screen documentary detailing a tense lawlessness at the U.S.-Mexico border

Ithaca College filmmakers Jeremy Levine and Landon Van Soest will screen "Walking the Line," a provocative 60-minute documentary exploring vigilantes, illegal immigrants and chaos along the U.S.-Mexico border, Wednesday, April 6, at 8 p.m. in Cornell's Uris Auditorium.

The event, part of CUSLAR's Latin American film series, will feature a question-and-answer period with Levine.

"Walking the Line" offers a harrowing view of the turmoil, absurdity and senseless deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border. In southern Arizona, private citizens are taking the law into their own hands and attempting to stem the flow of millions of illegal immigrants. The region, celebrated for its history of lawlessness, has become the most highly trafficked area for migrants -- and one of the most dangerous.

A shift in border policy forces immigrants to cross the unforgiving desert, where thousands die; those who make it face volatile civilian militias. Following rancher vigilantes with semiautomatic weapons, outlaw pastors with four-wheel-drive vehicles and hapless immigrants with dreams of a better life, the film explores the tangled line between what is patriotic, what is moral and what is just.

Levine was born in Beverly, Mass., where he developed a passion for films and filmmaking. In 2000 he produced a short movie for Express Yourself, a Massachusetts-based performance group, that was screened at the Schubert Theater in Boston. Last year, Levine produced "Jolly Black Slaves," a documentary that chronicles the character of Zwarte Piet, or "Black Pete," a controversial, racist figure in Dutch culture. Levine is a Park Scholar recipient at Ithaca College where he studies nonfiction film.

Van Soest was born in Denver and studied nonfiction film production at Ithaca College. In 2003 he produced "The Fringe and the Fabric," an experimental documentary that explores the role of the individual in society through interviews with a cult member and a 92-year-old nursing home resident.

In the summer of 2003, Van Soest worked with Big Mouth Productions on "Deadline," a feature documentary chronicling Gov. George Ryan's process of pardoning every inmate on Illinois' death row. "Deadline" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 and was broadcast as a two-hour NBC special.

Van Soest currently lives in New York City.