How the Refugee Week Film Festival conveys the experience of migrants back to their homelands | film

AWith World Refugee Day approaching on Saturday, this year’s Refugee Week offers several events taking place across the UK, including a film festival that takes audiences from Ain al-Hilweh – the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon – in Mehdi Fleifel’s film A World Not Ours and to a migrant deportation center in Dreamers, directed by Joey Garuru-Akpogotor.

The UK asylum system is the focus of Allies in Exile, a first-person documentary by Syrian directors Hassan Kattan and Fadi Al-Halabi that premiered on Tuesday at BFI Southbank, which explores the maze facing asylum seekers. Meanwhile, refugee charity Choose Love, in partnership with Tarot Productions, has curated a selection of four short films that together chronicle the different stages of the asylum search, from the difficulties of daily life in a person’s country of origin through the perilous journeys a person undertakes across land and sea, arriving in a hostile environment marked by ostracism and ongoing trauma. The event, held on Thursday at London’s Picturehouse Central, was themed “Bold Stories” and showcased films that “defy division.” “The UK would not be what it is today without all the wonderful people and cultures it is made up of,” says Fernandez Marelli, CEO of Choosing Love. “With increasing division, it is more important than ever to work together to make sure that refugees are seen as human beings, with hopes, dreams and ambitions.”

Bold Stories’ short films include The Long Spring, inspired by Uli Ginelli’s time as a volunteer in the refugee camps in Dunkirk and his interview with an Iraqi Kurdish asylum seeker named Saadi, who fled his homeland – where he himself was supporting displaced persons – during the advance of ISIS. After arriving in the UK, Al-Saadi was granted refugee status, reconnected with Ginelli and shared his experiences. The film takes place mostly inside the back of a truck as hours stretch into days and a group of people strive to evade capture by border forces. Al-Saadi himself described it as a “very difficult” watch, closer to “I See.”[ing] Your “nightmare” on screen. “There’s a hot mood right now about people coming here, but what they don’t realize is that a lot of people are forced into jobs where they work 80 hours a week and live with 30 people in a two-bedroom house,” Ginelli says.

Some of the results of this hot temper are the antics of a trio of would-be guards at Max Fisher’s base, Britannia. Rob and his friend Walsh, with his young son, are halfway across the Channel on a sea mission to “stop the boats.” However, their boat soon sinks and opens the door to a moral dilemma as the overcrowded refugee boat appears as a savior. The film’s sense of farce is compounded by the news that a boat belonging to Danny Thomas – one of Tommy Robinson’s associates – was being used to facilitate expeditions similar to Rob Woolshe’s own boat. To Fisher, such an example of life imitating art “seemed inconceivable at the time we wrote the film.” He added: “If we, as a society, cannot understand what is going on, we will be sleepwalking, not Nigel Farage.” [being] Our Prime Minister. “We will be sleepwalking towards something much worse than what we have now.”

Focusing on the plight of women in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Ilham Ehsas’s BAFTA-nominated film tackles the mundane act of shopping for clothes – which essentially means dressing fully covered. Ehsas says the film serves as a reminder to those who have looked away from the country since the Taliban’s return in 2021 and seeks to “show Afghan girls and Afghan women in a different light… They are funny, brave, and smart.” However, the point remains: “Their basic rights have been abolished, and this is a society that is almost an apartheid state.”

Set on a London estate, director Alexandra Wynn’s In the Clouds observes the refugee experience through the eyes of six-year-old Sarah. Claustrophobic atmosphere abound, with Wayne’s use of color enhancing the sense of loss that permeates the film. What matters, for Wayne, is the ability to make a “connection and empathy with these characters.” She received letters from people who had seen the film and related to the experience, including recently arrived Hong Kong residents who spoke of their alienation.

“As humans, we need to feed our curious minds, and Refugee Week allows us to engage with arts, culture and stories from people we may never have the opportunity to engage with,” Wayne says.