Crossing Borders

Filmmaker Arnd Wächter's cross-cultural documentary plays like a more grounded, personal version of MTV's hyper-edited reality TV series The Real World, following four American college students abroad in Spain who join Wächter's exchange-program-within-an-exchange program, sallying south across the Strait of Gibraltar to Morocco to spend a week with Muslim host families and to mingle and tour various sites with Moroccans their own age. Talk (and more important, listening) on both sides addresses the misunderstandings and xenophobia of the post-9/11 world. Islamic youths complain about being perceived as terrorist fundamentalists (yet they also defend the right of the voiceless to violently protest, such as when faraway cartoonists in Denmark defamed the prophet Mohammed). The Americans, meanwhile, acknowledge their scant knowledge of the Muslim world, and come to realize that they take for granted the USA's envious standard of living and freedom of travel—a point that hits home when Spain tightens its borders against North Africans and newfound friends from the two cultures realize they may never visit again, except through long-distance telephone and the Internet. Although parts of Crossing Borders could be considered an infomercial for Wächter's scholar-exchange program, overall this is still a thought-provoking documentary on a timely subject. DVD extras include a student dialogue segment, an interview with Wächter, and a featurette. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)