The global refugee crisis is giving rise to a large number of stories that need to be told and to be listened to. The displacement of people because of war, conflict or drought has reached an all time high. The pressures this brings on people in receiving countries feeling that this endangers their own peace and prosperity, givIng more and more rise to reactionary responses. All the more important to listen carefully to the stories of desperation and struggle people go through in their forced attempts to find places of safety and peace that most of us are so used to.

We have an opportunity not to get stuck in our own fears and prejudices by carefully attending to the stories of people who have suffered, who were forced to leave their countries, who have had to endure frightening and dangerous journeys to safety, who have many times met barriers and hostility when they arrived, who have had to enter into a long and demanding journey into a new culture, who have had to live long periods without their family. The stories of their struggles, in the face of unimaginable circumstances, are very important for us. They help us look differently at the refugees that all of us have around us in our own countries, to recover our empathy, inviting us to learn with and from them about overcoming, resilience and hope.

The film that I watched this week and inspired me to write this article was the 2020 film FAREWELL AMOR by Ekwa Msangi. Msangi is a US-born African-American director with a Kenyan ethnic background. Farewell Amor is her first feature film. It has its backstory in the Angolan Civil War that caused Walter to flee the country. He ended up in Brooklyn, New York and started to work at getting his wife Esther and his daughter Sylvia to join him. Now 17 years later, the film starts with him waiting at the gate in the airport with a welcoming bunch of flowers in his hands. They reunite as strangers to one another. This is a story about the interim phase, about the gaps, recriminations and regrets that happen when families have been separated for so long. This is a tender, powerful immigrant story of a family in need of a new beginning.

It made me go back to a few other films on the plight of refugees that I have seen in recent years. One or two of them I have written about in earlier Nexus film articles, but they deserve once again a warm recommendation:

FOR SAMA by Waad Al-Kateab (2019, UK, Syria)

For Sama tells the story of award-winning journalist and filmmaker Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria. During that time she falls in love with a doctor, Hamza, gets married and gives birth to her daughter Sama. This is a film about the experience of war all around a family and about the painful decisions that need to be made.  

LIMBO by Ben Sharrock (2020, UK)

Another story of the refugee experience set on a remote Scottish island where a number of refugees from Syria and elsewhere await the results of their asylum claims. They are not allowed to work, so they wait and wait… It centres on Omar, a young musician, who feels guilt and doubt about having left and a growing anger and depression about how he is treated.

MIDNIGHT TRAVELLER  by Hassan Fazili (2019, USA, Afghanistan)

This documentary film was recorded on three mobile phones. It records the flight of Fazili and his family of wife and two daughters. It takes three-years and a 3,500-mile journey and is filled with the hardship and inhumanity refugees face while seeking asylum and the love and hope a fleeing family holds together against all odds.

May 2024, Rinus Baljeu

Recent Posts