My Brother's Camera

My Brother's Camera:
In an extraordinary act of courage, two teenage brothers from Chicago document what became the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history. The footage you saw. The story you didn’t.

How You Can Help:
We made My Brother’s Camera because we believe stories like Ben and Sam’s deserve to be seen. We have finished filming and need your help to get it across the finish line. Your donation will help cover the remaining costs of post-production and will allow us to reach audiences beyond where the story began, through film festivals and screenings across the country. We're incredibly proud of this film and we can't wait to share this remarkable story with the world.

Ben & Sam's Story:
On an early September morning, Audrey Luhmann woke her two teenage sons and told them to get in the car. ICE had raided their Chicago neighborhood, detaining over a dozen people in a matter of hours. By the time Ben and Sam arrived, their neighbors had vanished. In the months that followed, the brothers picked up their cameras and began documenting, and at times deterring, ICE activity throughout their community.

When federal enforcement escalated in Minneapolis, Ben and Sam traveled north with the intention of training residents there to document and resist ICE the way they had in Chicago. What they found was far more volatile than anticipated, and they ended up capturing what would become the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history. Working through encrypted networks with dozens of other volunteers, they helped track and record federal agents across two cities, ultimately gathering over 40 hours of footage that they made freely available to major news outlets. My Brother’s Camera weaves that raw footage together with intimate, contemporaneous interviews to tell a story of teenage courage, community resilience, and the power of bearing witness in real time.

From The Director:
Minneapolis has always felt like home. When I was 9 or 10 years old, my grandmother would drive us from the cornfields of Iowa to the towering Twin Cities, and I instantly fell in love. The Metrodome, Nicollet Mall, Grand Ave in St. Paul, the ginormous Mall of America and of course, the lakes. Years later, I would spend my 20s working as a photojournalist at the local NBC affiliate, KARE-11. So when George Floyd was killed in 2020, followed by the tragic deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, I felt an undeniable pull back to the city that had shaped me. Minneapolis, and the surrounding communities of St. Paul, had been profoundly wounded, thrust into a trauma which would linger for years. Ben and Sam Luhmann stepped into that turmoil, sacrificing months of their teenage lives to protest and document the largest immigration crackdown in U.S. history. Watching their footage quickly transported me back to my own beginnings, when I first picked up a camera and discovered its power to expose the heartbreaking realities of the human cost of unchecked authority. The courage it took for Ben and Sam to stand next to heavily armed agents, resisting intimidation in an effort to record what looked like a battlefield is extraordinary. Their willingness to bear witness, to place themselves in uncomfortable and dangerous spaces in pursuit of truth, embodies the spirit of journalism and civic responsibility. Their story is a reminder that sometimes the most important acts of reporting come not only from seasoned professionals, but ordinary people brave enough to press record.

- Jeffrey Christian, Director