A journey through time which leads us back into the early 60s: With interviews and poetic images the film portrays a family business between tradition and change: The Hotel Bellevue in Lauenburg, a little West German city that formerly was a border crossing zone. Three generations of the Timm family have seen it all: Dances at tea time on Sundays, crowds of hungry or famous transit travelers, the border opening after the fall of the Berlin wall or the structural change of the local economy. The junior manager and his Brazilian wife do their best to keep up the traditional 60s style, but they also have to satisfy the different and increasing needs of their guests
After loosing his job, an office clerk rides his bike through the inner borders of a ghost-like city. When the chain of his bike suddenly entangles, he is confronted by the only man around: a homeless foreigner…
The work is inspired by U.S. Embassy warning messages I received accidentally over last few years. They contained information about potential safety problems for American citizens residing in Poland. Exaggerating these problems, they had nothing in common with the real situation in the country. They seemed to me an example of ignorance and they gave me a slight feeling of surrealism. Following them I visited various border crossing points trying to find visual impression as if foreigner incoming from abroad. Borders: lifeless, boring and similar to one another are odd and artificial. Within these borders the messages create another safer and more secure borders.
A foreign woman in a burqa brings her young son to a Copenhagen police station to file a complaint against her abusive husband, but the translator assigned to her seems unwilling to convey the true meaning of her words. A tense, diamond-hard film about cultural isolation and bureaucratic ignorance.
Through an on-line interactive documentary, Frontier Portraits offers a series of portraits of frontier residents and workers who bear witness to the singular activities at the gates of the European Union. The project reveals the influence of the frontier on their professions and their personal life stories. These encounters have enabled the composition of a complex and subjective portrait of daily life on the eastern border of the European Union, five years after its latest extension. Through them the specific local conditions in each of the regions visited are identified, but also the issues common to all frontier zones.
Children of Stateless is a documentary about Myanmar refugee children's life, education, labour, their future and family stories at Mae-la Refugee Camp, Thailand. Mae-la Refugee Camp is located in the city of Mat Sot which is a border district of western Thailand to share with eastern Myanmar (Burma). More than 50 000 refugees and more than 7 different ethnic people live together under different political, religious and personal backgrounds.
Ali and his younger brother, together with their parents are life-long immigrants from Afghanistan. They just arrived in Turkey. Every day they go to school and work hard the rest of the day as shoe shiners on the street. Both have one dream in common: work hard to save money and go after their uncle Kakay who has been lost without a trace since he left Turkey with the trafficker for the West. A great deal of their earnings goes to pay rent. One day they found out that another boy occupied their working spot for shoe shining. A fight breaks and they kick the other boy badly. Since the fight, the peace disappears from their inner human nature as a kid. More sadly, Ali’s childhood is gone for good when he sees that the boy they kicked is a Syrian refugee and has the same destiny as them.
Nora is nine years old when a missile destroys her home in Homs, Syria. Her cat is buried under the rubble and dies. Nora must flee and is allowed to bring only one little suitcase of clothes. She and her family must leave everything behind. They travel four days and nights through the desert, hiding in a truck. When they finally arrive in Jordan, Nora is terrified. After months she begins to feel safe, she makes new friends and even finds a new kitten... Nora dares to dream again about having a future in which her love for drawing plays a major role. Her future Art Academy for girls will be called ‘Art Forever’. And Nora will be its headmaster in a peaceful Syria. This story is about the right of refugee children to receive special attention, help and protection.
In a land that welcomes those without a home, the young Ahlem and Victoria share their faraway worlds while keeping on believing in their dreams...
The film-maker interviews various members of her family about their dangerous and risky journey from Vietnam to Great Britain as boat people in the late 1970's.
On 3 October 2013, a boat carrying 500 Eritrean refugees sunk off the coast of the Italian island Lampedusa. More than 360 people drowned. Abraham, one of the survivors, walks through a graveyard of shipwrecks and vividly remembers the nightmarish experience. Meanwhile, chaos breaks loose at the harbour, as hundreds of coffins are being loaded onto a military ship.
Laeticia, a young Congolese girl, is kidnapped and sold to an American sex trafficker, Vannie. He remains undetected until his rebellious neighbour, Zora, begins to investigate his mysterious presence. Zora, who constantly breaks her parents’ rules and dreams of a more exciting life, takes refuge in trying to figure out Vannie's true identity. However, she is unprepared to discover the human trafficking ring next door, which jolts her into adulthood.
As Libya descends further into civil war and lawlessness, migrants from Africa and the Middle East continue to journey to the country's coast in search of smugglers to take them across the Mediterranean Sea and into Europe.
Search and rescue operations by Libya's coast guard are restricted due to diminishing resources, and have to contend with dangerous gangs of armed traffickers.
Samuele’s job is to kill chickens. In his early thirties, he is the only Italian working in that sector of a huge food company. Every day, eight hours a day. And he hates immigrants. At the same time he desperately needs the job. He will do whatever it takes to keep the only important thing in his life close to him: his six year old son Elvis. When a young Senegalese colleague saves his life something breaks in him. Because to be in debt to someone he hates is the worst thing that could happen to him.
The five films give a unique insight into the lives of young people who have sought asylum in the UK, told by the children themselves. Each of the films convey different experiences of young refugees and asylum seekers, but each communicates the collective struggles and hopes of young people fleeing from their country of origin, and the issues they face adjusting to life in the UK. Individually animated to create a rich visual metaphor describing their experiences, these films powerfully explore themes including persecution, separation and alienation and seek to inform both children and adults of some of the hardships young refugees face.
The documentary was made by Ukrainian journalist, German director and German Photograph in September 2003 in frames of the conference “10 years of the EU Eastern external border”, organised by n-ost (Berlin) and donated by Robert Bosch Foundation. It highlights the life of the people in the Lviv Oblast that are trading and living from the border. It shows the contrast between simple people, that have barely enough for the essentials and corrupt custom officials that are becoming richer and richer.
Correspondent Milene Larsson visits Bulgaria to see Europe's newest border fence and speaks to Syrians who, because of the EU's Dublin Regulation, are trapped in one of Europe's poorest countries.
Correspondent Milene Larsson arrives in Italy as the only extensive search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean is replaced with a border surveillance mission, effectively leaving thousands of desperate migrants adrift in the sea.
VICE News travelled to the border between Texas and Tamaulipas to speak to people who have been detained on both sides of the border. They talk about their reasons for crossing the border, how they were detained, what their stay was like inside the detention centres, their plans for the future, and their fears. Now migrants have two options: return to their country, where they could be killed by gang-related violence, or attempt to enter the United States again, hoping that their luck will change, and they will achieve their American dream.