They're Here

The Main Cinema is screening They're Here over several days this week, with the main event happening today, Sunday, October 25, at noon. It's a 25-minute horror film, and if you're around on Saturday, October 24, there's a Q&A with co-director Rachel Lauren Mueller after the screening. The film runs again Monday, October 26, at 6:45 PM, and on Thursday, October 29.

They're Here is a collaboration between Academy Award, Pulitzer Prize, and Golden Lion winner Laura Poitras—known for Citizenfour and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed—and Minneapolis filmmaker Rachel Lauren Mueller, who directed 8 Days at Ware. The story follows Edén Villa, a pseudonym, and anonymous Minneapolis residents as they evade and resist a paramilitary occupation of their city: a winter landscape where masked agents abduct children and residents travel in trunks. It's a horror film, but the horror comes from a very specific place.

Under the hood, the film documents the behind-the-scenes resistance to a three-month ICE occupation of Minneapolis, built from dash-cam footage, crowdsourced data visualizations, counter-surveillance, and original on-the-ground filming. It was inspired by the real 2020-2021 ICE occupation of the city, during which thousands of immigrants were abducted. Poitras has spent much of her career working with government surveillance and secrecy: she was placed on a terrorist watchlist in 2006 and sued the U.S. government in 2015 to get her classified FBI files. Her 2025 film Cover-Up premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

Screenings are at The Main Cinema, 115 Main St SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414. Tickets are $10 for the October 24 screening and $5 for the October 25 through October 29 screenings.