In America's chicken-processing capital, immigrant poultry plant workers use theater to tell their stories and confront the forces that define their daily lives.
The Story
In Springdale, Arkansas, the poultry capital of America, immigrant workers have built lives around an industry that depends on their labor. But outside the plants, they built something else: a theater program where workers could tell stories about their lives, laugh together, and spend time with one another away from the demands of work. For years, theater was an important part of their lives and community. Then, as immigration enforcement intensified, the theater program went quiet.
Hen House follows the people trying to find their way back to the stage. At the center is Magaly Licolli, a community organizer who has spent years building spaces where workers can come together. Alongside her are workers like Gigi and Maria, whose relationships to the theater—and to being seen—evolve as the circumstances around them change.
Filmed over years with intimate access to homes, family life, rehearsals, and performances, Hen House moves between the theater and the world beyond it. It is a story about people returning to something they love, a portrait of a community navigating a changing reality, and an exploration of what it means to be seen.
Follow for Real-Time Updates
Submit your email below for updates as Hen House moves toward completion, including screenings, new developments, and opportunities to support the film.
Inside the Film
Years of Access
Filmed over several years, Hen House follows a community through shifting political realities, family life, work, and the return to theater. The camera stays close inside homes, rehearsals, and the everyday spaces where the consequences of uncertainty play out.
Why Now
Springdale is at the center of America’s poultry industry, and it is a community shaped by immigrant labor. As immigration enforcement has intensified across the country, the stakes of visibility have changed for the people at the heart of this film.
Hen House offers an intimate view of a community navigating that uncertainty from the inside.
The Team
Julia Rosenheim — Director / Producer is a documentary filmmaker interested in what people reveal about themselves over time. Working in an observational tradition, she documents how ordinary people navigate institutions larger than themselves and the moments of creativity, humor, and connection that emerge alongside them. Hen House is her directorial debut. Previously, she co-produced She Runs the World (Tribeca Festival, 2025) and Can't Look Away (Bloomberg Originals, 2025), which won an Emmy® and duPont-Columbia award. She has also helped produce award-winning documentaries and series for HBO and Netflix, including the Emmy® Award-winning Axios on HBO.
Karen Gaytán — Producer / Cinematographer is an Emmy® Award–winning producer and filmmaker whose work explores resilience, identity, and imagination across borders. She has produced documentaries for Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, and National Geographic, and currently directs her first feature, Traviesa, which follows boxer Jennifer Lozano, the first athlete from Laredo to qualify for Team USA at the Olympics. Rooted in her upbringing on the U.S.–Mexico border, Karen’s storytelling seeks to challenge dominant narratives of scarcity by centering the strength and creativity of marginalized communities. Formerly a community organizer focused on food security, public transportation, and civic engagement, she now bridges art and activism through films and impact campaigns that foster a sense of belonging and transformation.
Jazz Szympruch — Producer / Sound Recordist is a queer artist-activist & communal storyteller based in Brooklyn, NY on unceded Lenape land, devoted to unearthing varied perspectives of what it is to be human and strives to center joy, liberation, healing, and a reclamation of our relationship to the land in their pursuits. Documentaries Jasmine helped produce have been distributed by Netflix, Apple TV, HBO, Disney+, and PBS; and featured at Toronto International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, DocNYC, and others. They have contributed to numerous panels organizing around social and environmental justice work and they are a founding member of the independent media group, The Irregulars Collective.
Support the Final Chapter
Hen House is currently seeking partners to support the completion of production and post-production.
We are looking to connect with funders, EPs, distributors, broadcasters, and impact producers who are interested in the film.