Southern Oregon University alumnus Nick Alexander premiered his documentary film, “Illegal the Project,” on Sunday at New York City’s 9^th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival. It will be shown locally in April during the Ashland Independent Film Festival.

The feature-length documentary – which focuses on Salvadoran immigrant and successful Rogue Valley entrepreneur Laz Ayala – will also be shown at several film festivals along the West Coast.

After graduating from SOU in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in emerging media and digital arts, Alexander founded Nick Alexander Films – a video production company focused on marketing, weddings and documentaries.

The company’s first film, “Illegal the Project,” follows Ayala’s story as it explores the challenges of present-day immigration and efforts to humanize and reform it.

The film’s premier this past weekend was at Cinema Village – the oldest continuously operated cinema in Greenwich Village and one of the longest-tenured in New York City. It was one of 79 films in various genres from 27 countries that were selected from more than 650 submissions for the Winter Film Awards.

The Ashland screenings will be April 16-20, during the Ashland Independent Film Festival, when a variety of movies will be shown at the Varsity Theatre, Ashland Street Cinema the Historic Ashland Armory.

Additional showings of Alexander’s film are scheduled for the Red Dirt Film Festival on March 6-8 in Stillwater, Oklahoma; the Universe Multicultural Film Festival on April 3-5 at Palos Verdes Peninsula in California; and the Garifuna International Indigenous Film Festival on May 8-10 in Santa Monica, California.

Story by Blair Selph, SOU Marketing and Communications student writer