Still from Trace
Still from Trace
 

Trace

by Raluca Bejan & Ioan Cocan
An empathetic film about the Migrant Crisis in the Mediterranean, and the dangers faced in the process.
2018  ·  1h14m  ·  Canada
English
About the Film
Public accounts on the 2015 European refugee crisis covered the issue through an individualizing gaze placed on the refugee subject. The refugee in suffering, an experience witnessed by us all, as a spectacle, from the distance: Images of crowded tents, boats carrying overflowing numbers of people, children dying on Mediterranean shores. Trace turns the gaze outwards, scrutinizing the “space” of the crisis in which people seek refuge. On the one hand, there is the everyday of the “space.” The ordinary Greek island life (Lesvos) with not much to do in the early hours of the day, with people anchoring their fishing boats, some going for a swim, some strolling for a walk. On the other hand, the presence of the refugees is no longer a sine qua non presence. The space of the island changed from hosting refugees’ presence to hosting their absence. Trace figuratively marks the absence of the refugee crisis by symbolically creating a visual topography of the refugee crisis, seen through the space containing the crisis and juxtaposed to narrative accounts of people involved in the crisis. Trace is an independent documentary project. It was filmed in 2017, in the Greek islands of Lesvos, Samos and Chios; in Athens, Greece; Oxford, United Kingdom and Toronto, Canada. 
Upcoming Screenings

Stay tuned for upcoming screenings!

About the Director

Raluca Bejan

Raluca Bejan

Raluca Bejan was born in Focșani, Romania. She received her BA in Political Sciences from the Faculty of Law at Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu, Romania and a MSW and PhD degrees from the University of Toronto. She was Visiting Academic at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford, UK, in 2016 and 2018. Currently, Raluca is Assistant Professor in Social Work at Dalhousie University, and formerly Assistant Professor at Saint Thomas University.

 

Ioan Cocan

Ioan Cocan

Ioan Cocan works in media arts and graphic design. He obtained his BA from the University of Fine Arts, Bucharest, Romania and a Master in Fine Arts, Interactive Media and Environments, from Frank Mohr Institute for Graduate Art Studies and Research in the Arts and Emerging Media, Hanzehogeschool University, Groningen, The Netherlands.

 

Share

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Reddit
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
Pocket
Telegram
Email