How Refugee Week film festival brings migrants’ experience home

From one hostile environment to another, the documentaries and dramas ranging from Nigeria and Syria to British immigration give vivid life to an experience that can feel very remote

As World Refugee Day approaches on Saturday, this year’s Refugee Week offers a multitude of events taking place across the UK, including a film festival that takes audiences from Ain el-Helweh – Lebanon’s largest refugee camp for Palestinians – in Mahdi Fleifel’s A World Not Ours and to an immigration removal centre in Dreamers, directed by Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor.

The UK’s asylum system is the focus of Allies in Exile, a first-person documentary from Syrian film-makers Hasan Kattan and Fadi al-Halabi that premiered on Tuesday at the BFI Southbank, which explores the labyrinth facing asylum seekers. Meanwhile, refugee charity Choose Love curated a selection of four short films that together chronicle different stages in the search for asylum, from the difficulties of everyday life in a person’s home country through the perilous journeys made over land and sea, and arrival in a hostile environment marked by ostracism and ongoing trauma.The event, which took place on Thursday at Picturehouse Central, London, was entitled Fearless Stories and showcased films that “challenge division”.Josie Fernandez-Marelli, chief executive of Choose Love, says: “The UK wouldn’t be what it is today without all the incredible people and cultures that make it up. As division is growing, it’s more important than ever to work together to make sure that refugees are seen as human beings, with hopes, dreams and ambitions.”
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