As World Refugee Day approaches on Saturday, this year’s Refugee Week is serving up a film festival that takes audiences from Ain el-Helweh - Lebanon’s largest refugee camp for Palestinians - in Mahdi Fleifel’s A World Not Ours, to an immigration removal centre in Dreamers, directed by Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor. Because nothing says “welcome” like a screening of bureaucratic limbo.
The UK’s asylum system gets the documentary treatment in Allies in Exile, a first-person film from Syrian film-makers Hasan Kattan and Fadi al-Halabi that premiered Tuesday at the BFI Southbank, exploring the labyrinth facing asylum seekers. Think Kafka, but with more forms and fewer laughs.
Refugee charity Choose Love, in partnership with Tarot productions, curated a selection of four short films that together chronicle different stages in the search for asylum: from the difficulties of everyday life in a person’s home country, through perilous journeys over land and sea, to arrival in a hostile environment marked by ostracism and ongoing trauma. The event, titled Fearless Stories, took place Thursday at Picturehouse Central, London, showcasing films that “challenge division.”
Josie Fernandez-Marelli, chief executive of Choose Love, says: “The UK wouldn’t be what it is today without all the incredible people and cultures that make it up. As division is growing, it’s more important than ever to work together to make sure that refugees are seen as human beings, with hopes, dreams and ambitions.” Or, you know, as people who just want a safe place to live without the paperwork from hell.