After receiving glowing reviews from the New York Times, the Hollywood Reporter and the New York Daily News, the documentary Harvest of Empire played to sold out audiences throughout the weekend of September 28 in New York and Los Angeles.
The reviews were universally positive for Harvest of Empire, which examines the direct connection between the long history of U.S. intervention in Latin America and the immigration crisis we face today. Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News gave the film four stars, and wrote, "In an era of anti-immigrant fervor, this sobering and much-needed look at Latino migration is built on an undeniably optimistic premise: that once Americans have accurate facts, 'they rarely allow injustices to stand.'”
Frank Scheck of the Hollywood Reporter noted that, "With the immigration debate currently consuming much of the current political climate, there’s no better time for the release of Harvest of Empire. Peter Getzels and Eduardo López’s documentary adapted from the book of the same name by journalist Juan González makes the devastating case that intervention by both the U.S. government and multi-national corporations has either directly or indirectly been partly responsible for much of the mass influx of immigrants from Latin American countries."
In the New York Times, Rachel Saltz wrote that, “Harvest of Empire has a journalistic pedigree and a punch that comes from political advocacy...The filmmakers retain a touching faith that most Americans won’t tolerate injustice when they know about it. This film is meant to teach them."
