The experience of refugees is one of twofold hardship, torn between unstable or unlivable conditions in their homeland and new, often unwelcoming countries of asylum. In an age of global eruptions and heightened xenophobia amongst western leaders, Cinema Politica invites you to celebrate World Refugee Day with four films extolling the bravery of refugees. Unfolding all over the world, from an Ontario theatre (I AM ROHINGYA) to a refugee camp in Syria (LITTLE PALESTINE), these films offer a cumulative cry for the dignity of asylum seekers and call for a world where no one must flee their homeland.
I Am Rohingya: A Genocide in Four Acts
I AM ROHINGYA: A GENOCIDE IN FOUR ACTS chronicles the journey of fourteen refugee youth who take to the stage to re-enact their families’ harrowing experiences in Burma and beyond. This story chronicles their journey before, during, and immediately after the escalation of military violence in their native homeland, Rakhine state; their unforgiving escape by foot and by boat to makeshift camps in Bangladesh; and their eventual resettlement in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.
There, the children resolve to raise awareness for a conflict that has increasingly resembled a cruel systematic ethnic cleansing campaign — one of the most egregious and overlooked humanitarian crises in the world. With no prior theatrical experience, the decision to perform the stories of their people — accounts of unimaginable loss and suffering that have tragically come to define the Rohingya Muslim identity — becomes a courageous act of resistance, demonstrating to the world that they will not be erased and they will not be forgotten.
The Valley
High in the French Alps, on the border between Italy and France, African migrants fleeing war, poverty and political persecution risk their lives crossing dangerous mountain routes. Witnessing the increasing influx of refugees, local communities in the Roya and Durance Valleys start providing them with shelter, food and legal counselling. But providing assistance to undocumented migrants is a criminal offence, and the charitable actions of those citizen groups have put them on the wrong side of the law.
Another News Story
Debuting director Orban Wallace’s feature-length work engages the European refugee crisis, but the young British director turns the camera lens in a direction rather different from the rest of the documentary scene investigating recent events. He trains his penetrating gaze on the journalists sent by their employers to the Mediterranean to cover the unfolding humanitarian tragedy. By juxtaposing the stories of reporters and the experiences of Middle East emigrants, he has fostered a new meta-reading of media content. In today’s chaotic era, what is the “who, how, and why” of news spewed forth on world conflicts and crises? “Sometimes you feel you’re making a noise, but not helping really,” laments Lorenzo over the sensationalized treatment of human misfortune; he’s one of those who, in the months-long hunt for fresh information, accepts a nomadic lifestyle. When faced with immeasurable suffering, is it possible to maintain your humanistic sensitivity, or, glazed, do you just go after another news story?
Little Palestine, Diary of a Siege
In his directorial debut, LITTLE PALESTINE, DIARY OF A SIEGE, filmmaker Abdallah Al-Khatib offers a glimpse into the daily life of the residents of Yarmouk, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in the world.
Home to thousands of Palestinians, Yarmouk was seized in 2015 by ISIS/Daesh in alliance with al-Nousra. Syrian government forces retaliated to the siege with indiscriminate shelling of the camp that provoked widespread outcry against the loss of civilian lives and the destruction of the refugee camp. Yarmouk was cut off from electricity, leaving Palestinian refugees in an even more vulnerable and embattled state.
With the help of his friends, Al-Khatib portrays the ordinary lives of Yarmouk’s residents in the years leading up to the siege, as they persevere with dignity, love and hope amid a never-ending state of war.