The four Afghan refugees who have applied for asylum in Austria strike up the song, “The caravan moves on” again and again. Encouraged by the journalist Lucy Ashton to record their lives on their smartphone cameras as a video diary, the friends film their precarious daily routine between visits to authorities, small jobs, and changing accommodations. Yet even when hope is lost, one certainty remains: the power of friendship.
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Follow Chris Cotter, an American traveler, as he explores a common migration path through Ethiopia and into Israel, tracking the plight of Eritrean refugees. Chris and his crew visit several refugee camps, including the never-before-documented Afar region. The refugees tell stories of oppression, torture, and survival. Searching for solutions, Chris speaks to various NGOs and experts, including Assistant Secretary of State, Anne Richard. The outlook is bleak, but the spirit of the Eritrean refugees is hard to ignore.
In northern Morocco lies the Spanish enclave of Melilla: Europe on African Land. On the mountain above live over a thousand hopeful African migrants, watching the land border, a fence system separating Morocco and Spain. Abou from Mali is one of them – the protagonist in front of the camera, as well as the person behind it. For over a year, he has ceaselessly persisted in attempting to jump the fence.
A shocking exposé of the deplorable conditions and abuses from the Willowbrook State School for children with intellectual disabilities.
This Traveltalk short takes us to Vienna, the largest city in Austria. We visit the Schönbrunn Palace, the Charles Church, and the historic Opera House.
With Afghan Spring, Noriaki Tsuchimoto widened his focus to the international arena. Working in collaboration with his compatriot, Hiroko Kumagai, and Afghan film-maker, Abdul Latif, he examined society and politics in Afghanistan af the time of the Soviet withdrawal. The film now serves as a valuable record of a culture partially destroyed soon after by the Taleban regime.
Four dancers from Israel, Spain and Italy decide to take part in a cultural project and investigate the stories of some refugees from Pakistan living in camps outside Berlin. A reflection about the possibility of the body to tell stories, deleting social and ethnic distinctions, and connecting people from different groups.
La vie devant elle is the diary of the exile of Elaha, a 14 year old Afghan girl, who films herself with a small camera to tell her story. Through her story, the film portrays the reality of children growing up on the road, tossed from place to place to flee conflicts in the hope of finding a normal life.
Capturing the story of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with unprecedented access, director Laura Poitras finds herself caught between the motives and contradictions of Assange and his inner circle in a documentary portrait of power, betrayal, truth and sacrifice.
Chasing Asylum tells the story of Australia's cruel, inhumane treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, examining the human, political, financial and moral impact of current and previous policy.
The film documents Palestinian everyday's life under Isreali occupation in East Jerusalem. It uncovers Isreals policy of judaizing the city in order to gain Jewish majority by driving out Palestinian people from the city. The documentary includes interviews with Palestinian as well as Isreali political leaders, political analysts and human right activists.
The fate of thousands of people is unified under the tarpaulins of the refugee camps in Kobanê and in Shingal. Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi has given eight children the opportunity to use a camera to tell their own stories. Each film gives us a glimpse into the plight of the children, as seen through their own eyes. Their stories tell of young people with their whole lives ahead of them, though they’ve already lost almost everything. At a certain point, the film crew leaves the camp and follows the 13-year-old Mahmod and his sister in the search for his parent‘s house in Kobanê. The town has been ravaged by the war and all the children find is rubble. The eight films reveal the courage and openness of the young filmmakers, who share their stories with great intensity, realism and poetry, despite their harsh fate.
Soft boys by day, kings by night. The film follows a group of young Bulgarian Roma who come to Vienna looking for freedom and a quick buck. They sell their bodies as if that's all they had. What comforts them, so far from home, is the feeling of being together. But the nights are long and unpredictable.
A group of Kuchi children are living in a minefield around Bagram airfield, Afghanistan. They dig out anti-personal mines in order to sell the explosives to child workers mining in a Lappis Lazulli mine. The trajectory of the blue precious stones goes towards Tajikistan and China, through an area controlled by child soldiers. When they are not waging their own mini-wars in the daily madness of life in Afghanistan, the children are fleeing away in their personal fantasies and dreams, while the American soldiers are planning their retreat...
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.
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.