Crossing Borders

Řecké děti

A surreal exploration of the war in Bosnia told through the unbreakable spirit of seven of her people whose strength to leave was as powerful as the fight to stay. Through the lens of diaspora, the film captures not just the weight of displacement, but the defiant act of survival and the unwavering pursuit of home, no matter where the journey leads.

Poetry is everywhere, even in the refugee camps where absolute misery reigns. In front of old plastic advertising posters on which are drawn in giant format the big icons of luxury and consumerism that make up their shelters, refugee children stand like kings. Symbols of life at the heart of war, fragility, and death, these children are shown by Jocelyne Saab as precious notes of hope in the heart of a dehumanized world. One Dollar a Day was filmed in the Syrian refugee camps of the Bekaa plain, Lebanon in 2015, with text by Etel Adnan.

Via Dolorosa captures director’s journey in reconnecting with Vietnamese homeless persons whom she filmed for another short film two years ago. While she accompanied a man in his final days, Jo searched within herself to resolve the original sin of the documentary filmmaker as a bystander to the suffering of others.

#RimavskaPomahaUkrajine

To cool the heat on the asylum debate - the biggest 'hot potato' in Australian politics, we took a hot potato food van around the country in the lead up to the 2013 Federal Election. The mission? To see what Australia really thinks asylum seekers. This is an account of this journey.

Peter LeDonne and Steve Kalafer chronicle the extraordinary life of Immaculée Ilibagiza, a young African woman who escaped genocide in Rwanda and ultimately found refuge in the United States. Seeking shelter with an Episcopalian minister, Immaculée hid from her attackers inside a bathroom for three long months but stayed centered through prayer and faith.

Fadil is an Iraqi refugee who works as a telephone interpreter. From his attic room he translates calls between refugees and government agencies. At the start of every contact, he says: ‘I am your interpreter, I am impartial and will not interfere with this conversation.’ Even though Fadil lives in the Netherlands with his family, he knows people who still reside in war zones. How does it affect him when the witnessing of these conversations confront him with various dilemmas and let him relive his own past?

Australian filmmaker Sophia Turkiewicz investigates why her Polish mother abandoned her and uncovers the truth behind her mother's wartime escape from a Siberian gulag, leaving Sophia to confront her own capacity for forgiveness.

An estimated 12 million people live in refugee camps worldwide and only 0.1% are resettled, repatriated, or integrated into normal society each year. The feature-length documentary.

Flora and Louise met in Yaoundé (Cameroon). They fell in love and ever since then have never left each other's side. By pushing open the door of the nonprofit housing them, I discovered the story behind their refugee status and the reasons behind their exile.

Amine Diare Conde fled from Guinea to Europe at the age of fifteen. His voluntary work makes the 22-year-old the best-known asylum seeker in Switzerland.

Something from there is a short film on the substance of our original lands. Weaving between the voices of the artist’s parents, one a refugee and the other not, the film is personal, yet evokes a shared Palestinian experience.

This short documentary chronicles the culture and arts of Cambodian Americans and the Lowell, MA community through the eyes of Sokhary Chau, the first Cambodian American Mayor in the United States. Chau immigrated to the U.S. at seven years old to escape the Khmer Rouge genocide. Through this unique story that showcases the best of Lowell—immigrant success, assimilation, history, and the development of the arts—we see a man born into a war-torn country who comes to America to be a first-in-the-nation leader.

The filmmaker's father and uncle, Norm and Stan, are third generation Japanese Americans. They are "all American" guys who love bowling, cards and pinball. Placed in the Amache internment camp as children during World War II, they don't think the experience affected them that much. But in the course of navigating the maze of her father's and uncle's pursuits while simultaneously trying to inquire about their past, the filmmaker is able to find connections between their lives now and the history that was left behind.

La Babel des enfants perdus

More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq.

Das Golddorf

Amir, shot during the height of the Afghan civil war in the 1980s, investigates and portrays the life of Afghan refugees living in and around the city of Peshawar in northern Pakistan through the experiences of the musician Amir. The aspirations of Afghan refugees are expressed through their political songs dealing with the civil war in Afghanistan, with exile, with Afghan nationalism and with the Islamic revolution. In highly charged and tragic circumstances, music can be used in very direct ways, both to promote solidarity and as an agent of catharsis.

In search of the lucrative matsutake mushroom, two former soldiers discover the means to gradually heal their wounds of war. Roger, a self-described 'fall-down drunk' and sniper in Vietnam, and Kouy, a Cambodian refugee who fought the Khmer Rouge, bonded in the bustling tent-city known as Mushroom Camp, which pops up each autumn in the Oregon woods. Their friendship became an adoptive family; according to a Cambodian custom, if you lose your family like Kouy, you must rebuilt it anew. Now, however, this new family could be lost. Roger's health is declining and trauma flashbacks rack his mind; Kouy gently aids his family before the snow falls and the hunting season ends, signaling his time to leave.