Who Gets In?
1989 · 52m · Canada
Directed by Barry Greenwald
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative, provocative
Filmed in Africa, Canada and Hong Kong in 1988, this documentary examines Canada's immigration policy at first hand, revealing what officials look for in newcomers and the economic, social and political priorities behind their decisions.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A straightforward policy doc from '89 that does exactly what it says on the tin — no formal risk-taking, no narrative ambush, just competent journalism about bureaucracy. It's the kind of film that proves why most issue-driven docs disappear: they're too reasonable to haunt you.
Greenwald positions this within a rigorous documentary lineage—the observational inquiry into state machinery—and the three-geography structure (Africa, Canada, Hong Kong) creates a formal argument about immigration as a system rather than a tragedy. The restraint is the point: letting officials reveal their criteria unadorned becomes its own indictment.
The real move here is letting the officials speak their economic logic plainly without voiceover moralizing—that editorial choice to trust the audience to hear the cold calculus does more work than a score or montage ever could, and it's the kind of restraint that costs nothing and changes everything.