Film

The Detention Stories film tells the story of how Detention Stories was created. It documents the collaborative process behind the graphic novels, showing how three lived experiences of immigration detention in Canada were translated into graphic narratives.  The film moves between memory, legal process, and art, centring the voices of those who lived through detention. The film opens a window into the emotional weight and lasting impact of immigration detention. By weaving together lived experience, legal research, and visual storytelling, the film illuminates the inner workings of immigration detention, and reflects on each storyteller’s experiences with confinement, uncertainty, and the lessons of immigration detention.

The Detention Stories film tells the story of how Detention Stories was created. It documents the collaborative process behind the graphic novels, showing how three lived experiences of immigration detention in Canada were translated into graphic narratives.  The film moves between memory, legal process, and art, centring the voices of those who lived through detention. The film opens a window into the emotional weight and lasting impact of immigration detention. By weaving together lived experience, legal research, and visual storytelling, the film illuminates the inner workings of immigration detention, and reflects on each storyteller’s experiences with confinement, uncertainty, and the lessons of immigration detention.

This project was generously funded by:

The Killam Accelerator Research Fellowship,

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada,

The Law Foundation of British Columbia. 


“This work was carried out on the unceded territories of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit nations. In conducting this work, we acknowledge the constitutive role of settler colonialism in shaping and legitimizing Canada’s immigration detention system, as well as the global structures and systems that continue to oppress and displace people world-wide, which are deeply connected to the same colonial structures that oppress Indigenous people on Turtle Island.”

Detention Stories

© 2026 Detention Stories

This project was generously funded by:

The Killam Accelerator Research Fellowship,

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada,

The Law Foundation of British Columbia. 


“This work was carried out on the unceded territories of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit nations. In conducting this work, we acknowledge the constitutive role of settler colonialism in shaping and legitimizing Canada’s immigration detention system, as well as the global structures and systems that continue to oppress and displace people world-wide, which are deeply connected to the same colonial structures that oppress Indigenous people on Turtle Island.”

Detention Stories

© 2026 Detention Stories