Hassan Ahmad, an aspiring young filmmaker from New Delhi, had no idea of the difficulties he would face when he decided to leave behind his middle-class life in the Indian capital to chase his “American dream” in the United States. The protagonist of The Illegal, from 34-year-old Kashmiri director Danish Renzu, is forced to drop out of film school after encountering problems with his student loan and starts working full-time in an Indian restaurant as an undocumented migrant to support his…

This post was originally published on South China Morning Post.