Seven members of "Who is Dayani Cristal?" talk about moving film

Seven members of the "Who is Dayani Cristal?" team showed up to answer questions after the Thursday night screening. Gael Garcia Bernal said he was careful not to "re-enact" the mysterious main character's journey from Honduras to America, saying that whenever he watches other films or TV shows re-enact true-life events it always seemed "cheesy." Writer Mark Monroe was on hand, and the film was just one of three films he wrote that will be screening at Sundance this year. (He won plenty of notice for writing "The Cove," and he wrote "Sound City," Dave Grohl's documentary that will debut Friday.) Monroe said the film was "incredibly challenging" to work on, especially because "the main character was invisible to us." But, in the end, he said, "Every migrant story touches on the big picture." One of the Arizona officials that appeared in the film spoke up loudly, saying that she was ashamed of America's immigration policy, which she saw as cold-hearted. "[Other countries] send us their best, and we send them back," she said.

— David Burger