AMBIGUOUS BORDERS

Sunday, November 1, 2015

3:30pm - 5:40pm

Fully Booked

Radio Theatre, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London W1A 1AA

Each film will be introduced by its director. Sessions will be followed by a panel discussion with the filmmakers.

Mount Gourougou (reportage)

Hundreds of sub-Saharan African migrants have taken up residence in the treacherous conditions of Mount Gourougou. As they wait to attempt the crossing into Spanish territory, they recount their previous attempts to cross the border and their determination to start a better life. Bruno Rocchi tells their stories with compassion and conviction, painting a vivid picture of the inhospitable environment and hostility they face from both the Spanish and Moroccan police.

Directed by Bruno Rocchi, an Italian filmmaker with a focus on observational and ethnographic filmmaking. Between 2012 and 2015 he travelled the northern part of Morocco and shot a documentary about the working situation in the Rif, Bled el Makhzen as well as producing and directing Mount Gourougou in 2013.

Like many others, a Palestinian family from Hebron was forced to leave Palestine in 1948. Exiled in Jordan, their Jordanian citizenships were revoked after the Black September events of 1970 and they were, once again, driven out of their homes. Sent to Syria to settle in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, this time they were not given any citizenship papers and were considered 'unidentified'. Today, this family faces yet another expulsion. After hearing about their father's execution via Facebook, the family decided to leave Yarmouk back to Jordan despite their lack of identity papers. Through Second Hand Refugee, audiences hear Thawra, Farah and Ahmed tell their story of life without formal identity papers and their repeating history of displacement.

Directed by Jumana Saadeh,Jumana Saadeh is a filmmaker from Jordan. She is currently a director and producer at Shashat Multimedia Productions in Amman, creating content for web and television. Second Hand Refugee is her first documentary. It was screened at the Al-Jazeera Documentary Film Festival in Qatar and the Altın Çınar Film Festivali in Turkey. Jumana holds an MA in Film Production from the University of Central Lancashire.

This is Exile is an intimate portrait of child refugees forced to flee from the violence of Syria's civil war to neighbouring Lebanon. Filmed over a year, the documentary allows the children to tell their stories in their own words capturing the truth of how they deal with loss, hardship and a political consciousness beyond their age. The testimonies in this film form an intelligently crafted snapshot of the human cost of this ongoing war. This topical documentary is also a timeless look at the essence of exile. By now, over 4 million people have been forced to leave their homes to neighbouring countries, half of them are children.

Directed by Mani, Mani is an award-winning independent filmmaker and photographer. He has worked in Niger, India and Pakistan, settling in Syria in 2011. His first documentary, Horror of Homs (2012), produced by ITN/Channel 4 News, won the Royal Television Society Award, the Rory Peck Award, the Amnesty International Media Award and the Front Line Club Award, among others. His photos have appeared in Paris Match, Le Monde, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Magazine, Die Zeit and National Geographic Magazine. His films have aired on Channel 4, CNN, CBS, France 2, Canal+ and ZDF.

#73 looks at the plight of the minority Yezidi community, many of whom have been left homeless by the rise of the so-called Islamic State. Having left his parents behind in his besieged village, Barakat Hassan travels back across the Syrian/Iraqi border in search of them. As we follow Barakat on this perilous journey, we hear the stories of other refugees who are crossing the border and get a first-hand account of the challenges they face.

Directed by Rekesh Shahbaz, Rekesh Shahbaz was born in Duhok, 1981. He is a theatre and film actor, a TV host and producer and a documentary director. Rekesh received his degree from the Institute of Fine Arts in Dohuk.