9500 Liberty Heads to Arizona!

In Tempe, Arizona this Friday, April 30th, Harkins Theaters will host the theatrical premiere of the award-winning documentary 9500 Liberty. The film tells the story of a northern Virginian community's struggle to manage its changing population in a climate of fear and racial tension, as an extremist community group lobbied Prince William County's Board of Supervisors to pass a resolution that would give local law enforcement the authority to check proof of citizenship for all whom they had "probable cause" to suspect were undocumented.

The film captures the devastating social and economic effects the resolution brought to Prince William County, and should serve as a cautionary tale for Arizona, as Governor Brewer just signed into law a near-replica of the PWC resolution. In fact, both pieces of legislation were drafted by the same anti-immigration lobbying firm, FAIR, classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "Hate Group," and by the Anti-Defamation League as a "Nativist Extremists Group."

In an emergency response to the passage of such eerily similar legislation in AZ to that proposed in PWC, filmmakers Annabel Park and Eric Byler, in partnership with Harkin's Theaters and our friends at New Organizing Institute, decided to accelerate 9500 Liberty's theatrical release and screen the film in theaters across AZ. The film will screen 4 times daily at Harkins Valley Art Theater in Tempe, AZ, with the special premiere event this Friday, April 30th at 7 pm.

I know I've posted this more than a few times before, but if you don't have a chance to catch the full film, I hope you will watch, and share, this trailer. With the new reality in Arizona, this film becomes the most useful tool we have to understand what is about to happen in Arizona.