Laura Poitras presented in Venice the documentary "They're Here" in the competitive section of the festival. The filmmaker revealed she decided to create the film after seeing a 10-second video on the internet that showed an idyllic winter landscape juxtaposed with screams and voices warning people to stay inside and lock their doors. The director described feeling that "the monsters were invisible, but the voices described a very real horror".
The 25-minute documentary uses horror and dystopian film rhetoric to explore the brutal offensive against immigration that took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, between December 2025 and March 2026. During that period, agents from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants.
The film also addresses the deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of authorities, which generated protests throughout the United States. The work was presented out of competition in the Venice showcase.
The piece mentions that the situation in the United States led to the normalization of masked paramilitaries who kidnap children and execute civilians in broad daylight, a reference to the anti-migration policies associated with the Trump administration.
