emn discussion evening with documentary screening: Refugee camp, my home
Screening of the documentary film “Salam Neighbor” (2015, 75 min., www.livingonone.org/salamneighbor, English and Slovak subtitles) and a video message from the directors Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci. As the first filmmakers they were allowed to live for a month inside a UNHCR refugee camp Za'atari in Jordan near Syrian borders. It is one of the biggest refugee camps in the world with currently more than 80 000 Syrian refugees.
Zach and Chris uncover inspiring stories of individuals rallying, against all odds, to rebuild their lives and those of their neighbours. The films follows a story of Um Ali, a woman struggling to overcome personal loss and cultural barriers, and the street smart boy Raouf, whose trauma hides just beneath his ever present smile.
The film won awards at several film festivals.
Zach and Chris uncover inspiring stories of individuals rallying, against all odds, to rebuild their lives and those of their neighbours. The films follows a story of Um Ali, a woman struggling to overcome personal loss and cultural barriers, and the street smart boy Raouf, whose trauma hides just beneath his ever present smile.
The film won awards at several film festivals.
Screening was followed by a discussion with Kilian Kleinschmidt about the dire conditions which refugees face. Kilian is a former director of Za’atari refugee camp in Northern Jordan and has over 25 years of hand-on experience in humanitarian aid and work with refugees. As an international networker, he is now challenging the Humanitarian Aid Sector through a range of new and unorthodox partnerships, technologies and ways of financing (www.switxboard.net).
FILM SCREENING: the good lie
Slovak screening of the film The Good Lie (2014, 1h 46min., English with Slovak subtitles, www.thegoodliemovie.com), by Philippe Falardeau, about the Sudanese refugees - “Lost Boys of Sudan” - resettled to the USA.
A group of young refugees orphaned by the civil war in Sudan that began in 1983 are given the chance to resettle in the United States from a Kenyan refugee camp where they have lived for 13 years. After arriving in Kansas City, Missouri, their encounter with an employment agency counsellor forever changes all of their lives. The film stars Reese Witherspoon alongside Sudanese actors, many of whom were also refugees.
