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AWorld Refugee Day is coming up on Saturday, this year Refugee Week offers many events taking place in the UK, including a film festival that takes audiences from Ain el-Helweh – Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp – to Mahdi Fleifel’s. A World Not Ours and go to the immigration office Dreamersdirected by Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor.
The UK’s asylum system is the focus of Allies in Exile, a first-person documentary from Syrian filmmakers Hasan Kattan and Fadi al-Halabi that appeared on Tuesday at the BFI Southbank, which focuses on asylum seekers. This time, the refugee organization Select Love chose four short films that together document the different stages of the search for asylum, from the difficulties of daily life in one’s home country through the dangerous journeys made on land and sea, and reaching the worst places characterized by discrimination and constant trauma. He said: “The UK would not be what it is today without the amazing people and the incredible diversity of culture.
Fearless Stories’ short films include The Long Spring, which was inspired by Olly Ginelli’s time volunteering at a refugee camp in Dunkirk and meeting an Iraqi refugee asylum seeker named Saady, who fled his home – where he helped refugees – during the Islamic State. After arriving in the UK, Saady found an asylum, reconnected with Ginelli and shared his experiences. The film is mostly set in the back of a lorry as the hours drag on into days and a group of people try to escape from being caught by the border guards. Saady himself described it as a “very difficult” watch, similar to “seeing (seeing) your horrors” on the screen. Ginelli said: “Now people are coming here, but what they don’t know is that many people are forced to work 80 hours a week and live with 30 people in a two-room house.”
Among the results of this anger are the scenes of three potential vigilantes in Max Fisher’s. Rule, Britannia. Rob and his partner Walshy, with a young son, are in the middle of the Channel on a nautical “mooring” project. However their sinking boat is soon replaced by a moral crisis while a boat full of refugees appears as a savior. The film’s popularity has increased with the news that the boat of Danny Thomas – a friend of Tommy Robinson – was supporting the same trips as Rob and Walshy who drowned. For Fisher, such artistic imitations “seemed impossible at the time we were writing the film”. He added: “If we can’t understand what’s going on, if we can’t understand what’s going on, then we’re going to sleep and not Nigel Farage (who is) our Prime Minister.
Focusing on the plight of women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, Elham Ehsas’ Bafta-nominated film Yellow examines the common practice of buying clothes – which means the full-covering chadaree. Ehsas says the film is a reminder to those who have looked away from the country since the Taliban came back in 2021 and wants to “show Afghan girls and Afghan women in a different way… they are funny, brave, and smart”. However, it is still the case that “their human rights have been taken away and this is a society that is almost a country of segregation between men and women”.
Set in London, Alexandra Wain’s In the Clouds sees the refugee situation through the eyes of six-year-old Sara. The atmosphere of claustrophobia is high, and Wain’s use of color reinforces the sense of loss that permeates the film. The key, for Wain, is being able to create “a connection and empathy for these characters”. He has received messages from people who have seen the film and related their experiences, including recently arrived Hongkongers who talk about their isolation.
“As humans,” says Wain, “we need to feed our inquisitive minds, and Refugee Week allows us to engage with the arts, culture and stories of people we might not otherwise have the opportunity to interact with.”
