Behrouz Boochani

A feature documentary telling the story of Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish journalist who fled the Iranian regime, seeking asylum in Australia in 2013. Transferred to Manus Island Detention prison a month after his arrival on Australian shores by boat, Behrouz spent six years in detention. His reporting and writings from the Manus detention prison, using a smuggled mobile phone, brought to international notice the horrific reality of life for detainees. His book 'No Friend but the Mountains’ written while in detention on his mobile phone has become one of the most celebrated books in Australia in recent times, winning Australia's prestigious literary award, the 2019 Victorian Prize for Literature.

An urgent and powerful documentary, shot in a detention centre where asylum seekers trying to reach Australian shores are indefinitely detained. Secretly shot on a mobile phone by Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani while detained on Manus, in Papua New Guinea, the film is a collaboration with Dutch-Iranian filmmaker Arash Kamali Sarvestani. Boochani recounts, via the testimonies of fellow inmates, the abuse and violence inflicted and the precarious state of limbo they find themselves in. Chauka, the name of the dreaded solitary confinement unit within the detention centre, was originally the name of a beautiful bird and symbol of the Manus Island. By interweaving dialogue with two Manusian men and shots of daily life on the island, the film gives a much-needed voice to Manus inhabitants, understandably distressed by the current situation. With marked restraint, the film exposes lives broken by shocking immigration policies.