Ellis-JR

I have been following the French street artist JR for some time and I just saw that the poster of his new short movie ELLIS is out. The film will be out in the US in October and hopefully we will be able to see it at some point. It is part of a series of projects about Ellis Island, the gateway to the United States for 12 million immigrants.

The short film explores parts of the island that nobody visited in over 70 years, and pays respect to to all those who were not given a chance at the American Dream. “It’s a fiction, that slowly connects to the reality,” JR explains. “I asked Robert De Niro to play an immigrant that’s been there and never got accepted, and ended up being a ghost in this island. You see things from his point of view, telling his story and it slowly connects to what happens today.”

Last year the artist also hosted a very interesting photo installation called Unframed – Ellis Island, on the walls of the old abandoned hospital on the island, which closed in 1954.