The Sandbox
Through cinematic landscapes and testimony from survivors, journalists, and witnesses, Kenya-Jade Pinto’s The Sandbox explores modern border control, where surveillance, AI, and militarization decide who lives and who dies. From the Arizona desert to the drone-policed Mediterranean, migrants flee unforgiving landscapes while rescuers face the Sissyphean task of keeping them safe. Meanwhile, tools tested at borders spill into databases and daily life, collapsing distance between watcher and watched. No villain stands at the center, only processes and protocols.. There is no outside: the film shatters the illusion separating “them” from us. In The Sandbox, we are all digitizable and disposable.
Kenya-Jade Pinto
Kenya-Jade Pinto is an Indo-Kenyan-Canadian documentary photographer, filmmaker, and lawyer. She grew up chasing crabs on the Kenyan coast, before moving to Alberta’s foothills as a teen. Her hyphenated worldview informs her work where she focuses on non-fiction and narrative projects that navigate themes of displacement, belonging, and access to justice.
Kenya-Jade blends her creative eye with thoughtful precision, and most recently supported Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson as an associate producer on Scarborough – all the way to the Toronto International Film Festival and beyond.
Kenya-Jade’s training as a human rights lawyer has deepened her practice as a documentarian on projects like Not Yet Home, Level Justice, and more recently, The Sandbox. She has participated in DOC Institute’s Breakthrough Program as well as HotDocs’ Emerging Filmmaker Program. She’s the filmmaker-in-residence at York University’s Refugee Law Lab, and in 2021, she was named a National Geographic Explorer. She is currently directing her first documentary feature with frequent collaborators, Compy Films.
Kenya-Jade is also a member of Women Photograph and Diversify Photo, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations as well as a Juris Doctor (cum laude) with a specialization in International law. She is a member in good standing of the Law Society of Ontario.
Kenya-Jade is available for assignments, collaborations and connecting at hello[at]kenyajade[dot]com.
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