Kyung-jae and Byung-jo make money from smuggling irregular migrants from China into South Korea. One day, all the stowaways, except a young woman, die while being transported in a refrigerator van. Kyung-jae and Byung-jo now have to decide whether to get rid of her or not. The plot follows Kyeong-jae, Byeong-jo and their friends who guide and secretly hand over Chinese immigrants and a woman from the smuggled group. Although he resides in an illegal world hiding away from the law, Kyeong-jae dreams of buying a truck and living as any common citizen. Then one day an unfortunate accident occurs to one of the Chinese groups that he handed over to the middleman, and an unexpected opportunity finds him when Chinese woman Yu-hong with a large amount of money is the sole survivor of the accident. But when Kyeong-jae sees what a state she is in, he decides to help her escape.
Thirty-one-year-old Shukri left her four children in Somalia in 2008, walked across North Africa and risked a hazardous raft trip across the Mediterranean to seek a better life in Europe. She is one of the thousands of migrants who attempt the journey each year and although she has been given refugee status in Italy her future still looks bleak. Film maker Rossella Schillaci followed Shukri to describe the realities of her life — and of those of thousands of others.
Festivals/Awards:
3rd Lampedusa Film Festival (Italy) 2011 – Special price
Economic migrant Andrej starts a friendship with the much younger Chechen refugee Moya. A man in a cafe strikes up a conversation with a girl. It seems they are both irregular migrants to the UK; Andrej (Robert Cambrinus, who also writes and directs) from Ukraine, Moya (Audrey McCoy) from Chechnya. For a fleeting moment Moya dreams of a normal life, while Andrej knows it's just an illusion. We watch as their romance blossoms, but trouble isn't far away.
Well-acted drama telling the story of two migrants who meet in a London café who strike up an unlikely friendship, with disastrous consequences.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of Africans risk their lives trying to get into Europe. We follow a convoy of young migrants. Pervasive hopes and idealism characterise the journey’s start: they are going to be the lucky ones who, despite all odds, will be able to make a new life in Europe. Next comes the understanding of what they had undertaken through the loss of their money in bribes to corrupt officials, the dried-up corpses of other migrants in the desert — a constant reminder of what would happen to them if they ran out of water. Then comes the hell of Libya’s internment camps, with squalid living conditions and beatings, leading to the bitter knowledge that they are simply pawns, to be used and abused by every authority they encounter. And eventually the sickening realisation that they have lost the biggest gamble of their lives.
Festivals/Awards:
Selected for IDFA 2011, FIPA 2012, VERA Film Festival 2012, and Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival.
Previous broadcasts include FRANCE 5, SIC, PRAMER, MEDIA CONTENTS STORE, ART MEDIA, DR, PLANETE POLAND, SVT, DRS, MAC TV AND MEDI1SAT
Kingsley is 23 years old and lives in a two-room house with his parents and seven siblings in a coastal village in Cameroon. He is raised with the image of Europe as the Promised Land: if he could only get there, life for him and his family would improve.
Photojournalist Olivier Jobard introduces us to Kingsley as he makes the difficult decision to embark on his "mission," and then accompanies him, documenting his uncertain and perilous journey. Step by step, across desert and ocean, we come to see immigration through one man's eyes, and learn the rewards — and the costs — of such a dream.
"IN-OUT" is about a Turkish filmmaker participating in a documentary project organised in Europe, and her story of probation and deportation at the land borders of Serbia and Bulgaria. The documentary, consisting of three main parts, presents the concept of borders and aims to raise questions about different constructs of citizenship status and the procedures in place at border crossings.
Festivals/Awards:
Boston Turkish Festival Documentary and Short Film Competition, U.S.A. (2011): Best Documentary
Crossroads International Short Film Festival, Istanbul, Turkey (2011): Best Film
Golden Orange International Film Festival, Antalya, Turkey (2011)
Sinepark Short Film Festival, Istanbul, Turkey (2011)
International Human Rights Film Festival, Izmir, Turkey (2011)
Eliseo Gomez is heading north to the United States to provide a better life for his wife and daughter. At the border his journey takes an unexpected turn. As he crosses the relentless desert, with very little food and water, Eliseo is physically and emotionally drained. Just when he feels the situation is impossible, he stumbles upon a young boy, also lost and suffering.
Based on the true story of a Sudanese refugee, Aamir Ageeb. Amir wants to report the theft of his jacket to the police, but at the police station everything seems to be going completely differently from what he had imagined and expected. His journey has just begun.
Festivals/Awards:
Dhaka Film Festival, Bangladesh (2012): Special Mention
Milan Film Festival, Italy (2011): Best Short Film
Boston Turkish Arts and Culture Festival Documentary and Short Film Competition, USA (2011): Best Short Film Jury and Audience Awards
Minghella Film Festival, UK (2011): Best Human Rights Film
International Short Film Festival of Soria, Spain (2011): Best International Short Film
One Shot Short Film Festival, Armenia (2011): Special Mention
Sinepark Short Film Festival, Istanbul, Turkey (2011): Best Short Film, Best Screenplay
Akbank Short Film Festival, Istanbul, Turkey (2011): Best Film
Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Greece (2011): Experimental Forum
German Human Rights Film Award, Germany (2010)
Jan Machulski Film Festival, Poland (2010): Best Second Film
Golden Orange Film Festival, Antalya, Turkey (2010: Special Jury Award
Asiana International Film Festival, South Korea (2010)
Crossing the Mexican-USA border in the trunk of a car, Alejandro must face what he had hoped to leave behind. While working as a bartender in Manhattan, director Evan Buxbaum met a lot of immigrants, both legal and irregular. Taken by the humorous aspect of many of their border-crossing stories, Buxbaum came up with a short film drawing on the accounts of friends and co-workers: La Linea (The line). Says Buxbaum, "It’s a film that humanises the struggle of displacement and migration by highlighting our unending potential for laughter and hope — even in the most trying of circumstances." The film has been screened at several festivals.
Ahmed lives with his Chechen parents and younger brothers on the outskirts of Oslo. The family fled to Norway because of the war between the Chechens and the Russians, but his parents want to return to their country as soon as possible. In Ahmed's home, his dad is the boss, the one you respect without question. As the oldest son, Ahmed is responsible for his brothers, the shopping, and all kinds of odd jobs. Ahmed explains that he's being told he'll be an adult soon, and that he needs to act like one. Now that he's almost 13, he's starting to think about his future and his role in the family. The film captures Ahmed during these formative months. The family often watches old home movies from Russia, while Ahmed's father talks proudly about his plans for the family. In the home movies, the boys see a seemingly happy, hardworking man who looks very different from their now unemployed, depressed dad. Ahmed asks him directly why he's not the man he used to be. The youngster starts to rebel against his dad more and more, while his doubts grow about a future in Russia.