Refugee Blues

Hotel Rwanda

December 2004 •English

Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.

Tears of the Sun

March 2003 •English

Navy SEAL Lieutenant A.K. Waters and his elite squadron of tactical specialists are forced to choose between their duty and their humanity, between following orders by ignoring the conflict that surrounds them, or finding the courage to follow their conscience and protect a group of innocent refugees. When the democratic government of Nigeria collapses and the country is taken over by a ruthless military dictator, Waters, a fiercely loyal and hardened veteran is dispatched on a routine mission to retrieve a Doctors Without Borders physician.

Charlie Wilson's War

December 2007 •English

A Texas congressman sets a series of events in motion when he conspires with a CIA operative to aid Afghan mujahideen rebels fighting the Soviets.

Süchtig nach Jihad

December 2014 •German

Refuge

January 2017 •Arabic

Refugees are captured by border patrol officers as one woman escapes to find herself surviving on her own in a foreign land.

Children of Men

September 2006 •English

In 2027, in a chaotic world in which humans can no longer procreate, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea, where her child's birth may help scientists save the future of humankind.

Night Shapes

August 1999 •German

The Pope is in town and the night of his stay is anything but heavenly for some of Berlin′s inhabitants. Rich and poor, down-and-outs and policemen, street kids and taxi drivers - in their search for a little bit of happiness, they all end up on an amusing and at times harrowing odyssey through the labyrinth of the big city.

The Day After

December 1983 •English

In the mid-1980s, the U.S. is poised on the brink of nuclear war. This shadow looms over the residents of a small town in Kansas as they continue their daily lives. Dr. Russell Oakes maintains his busy schedule at the hospital, Denise Dahlberg prepares for her upcoming wedding, and Stephen Klein is deep in his graduate studies. When the unthinkable happens and the bombs come down, the town's residents are thrust into the horrors of nuclear winter.

Draussen bleiben

October 2007 •German

Turtles Can Fly

January 2005 •Kurdish

Turtles Can Fly tells the story of a group of young children near the Turkey-Iraq border. They clean up mines and wait for the Saddam regime to fall.

Sweetness in the Belly

September 2019 •English

Orphaned in Africa as a child, Lilly escapes to England as a refugee, fleeing civil war in Ethiopia. Lost in this cold new world, Lilly embraces the immigrant community in London, attempting to reunite people with their scattered families. But as her friend Amina discovers, Lilly's mission isn't purely selfless: a passionate lost love affair is revealed.

Dogville

May 2003 •English

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

December 1966 •Italian

While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.

Air America

August 1990 •English

Air America was the CIA's private airline operating in Laos during the Vietnam War, running anything and everything from soldiers to foodstuffs for local villagers. After losing his pilot's license, Billy Covington is recruited, and ends up in the middle of a bunch of lunatic pilots, gun-running by his friend Gene Ryack, and opium smuggling by his own superiors.

Macross: Do You Remember Love?

July 1984 •Japanese

It is A.D. 2009 and the human race is caught in a war between giant humanoids, male Zentrans and female Meltrans. Returning from the edge of our solar system after making a space fold, the SDF-1 Macross makes the long journey back to Earth with survivors of South Ataria Island.

Amir: An Afghan Refugee Musician's Life in Peshawar, Pakistan

January 1985 •English

Amir, shot during the height of the Afghan civil war in the 1980s, investigates and portrays the life of Afghan refugees living in and around the city of Peshawar in northern Pakistan through the experiences of the musician Amir. The aspirations of Afghan refugees are expressed through their political songs dealing with the civil war in Afghanistan, with exile, with Afghan nationalism and with the Islamic revolution. In highly charged and tragic circumstances, music can be used in very direct ways, both to promote solidarity and as an agent of catharsis.

Yasmina

January 1961 •Arabic

"Yasmina" filmed in 1961 in the middle of the Algerian war tells the story of a little Algerian girl with her hen and her family whose father was killed in a bombing by the French colonial army of occupation. The family, after a long journey, heads towards the refugee camps on the Tunisian border. Produced by the Cinema Service of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) in the midst of the war of independence, these films were intended to re-inform the population and international public opinion on the abuses committed by the French colonial army: torture, arrests and arbitrary executions, napalm bombings, fires in douars, entire villages wiped off the map, etc. which the French media described as a "pacification" campaign. The latter censoring or reorienting any images that could harm the colonial narrative.

Mr. Gay Syria

September 2018 •English

In focusing his attention on the competitors of Mr Gay Syria, director Ayse Toprak shatters the one-dimensional meaning of “refugee”. Using the pageant as a means of escape from political persecution, the organiser Mahmoud — already given asylum in Berlin — hopes to offer the winner a chance to travel as well as bring international attention to the life-threatening situations faced by LGBT Syrians.

Warehoused

September 2017 •English

An estimated 12 million people live in refugee camps worldwide and only 0.1% are resettled, repatriated, or integrated into normal society each year. The feature-length documentary.

What We Carry With Us: Refugee Storylabs

October 2019 •English

Young refugee storytellers curate their own prized possessions. Then, they collaborate with a team of digital artists and documentarians on a series of short films and “show and tell” multimedia events. For example, a shipping container is outfitted with luminous LED screens showcasing “video ads” for refugees’ “memory objects.” Inside the shipping containers, short documentaries are shown, followed by immersive video chats. Immersive media installations have been presented at UC Berkeley’s Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life and –in collaboration with Shared Studios– on New York’s Times Square.