This is a protest film born out of the present moment, made in response to what is happening in this country right now. Round Up comes from the collective vision of four artists: Cruz Castillo, Angie Lopez, Cassidy Conway, and Aaliyah Magcasi. We believe that the heart of storytelling lies in truth, and that film must confront power when silence becomes dangerous.

The story was written as a warning. Weeks later, it became reality. As ICE raids escalated across Los Angeles and the country, families hunted, detained, and erased, the future imagined in this script arrived faster than anyone expected. The fiction that was once speculative is now urgent. The horror that felt distant is now here.

Our story unfolds over a single, harrowing night in a near-future El Paso, Texas, where the Jaime family prepares for a desperate escape across the U.S. border into Mexico while pursued by a militarized immigration system. Rooted in lived experience, Round Up pulls back the curtain to reveal the United States as an unsolvable monster that watches, processes, and consumes. This is a world of paranoia sold as propaganda, where bodies are stripped of autonomy and identities require erasure.

This film asks what happens when a government obsessed with control turns its gaze inward, when optics matter more than humanity, and specific communities are reduced to targets. Round Up is not just a film; it is an act of resistance. An insistence on visibility. A refusal to look away.

If you believe film can challenge power, protect dignity, and speak truth where silence is enforced, we invite you to stand with us. Your support, whether through a donation or by sharing this project, helps turn resistance into action and vision into impact. Stories like this survive because people choose to fight for them. Now is the time.