Refugee

The Story Won't Die

April 2021 •English

THE STORY WON’T DIE, from Award-winning filmmaker David Henry Gerson, is an inspiring, timely look at a young generation of Syrian artists who use their work to protest and process what is currently the world’s largest and longest ongoing displacement of people since WWII. The film is produced by Sundance Award-winner Odessa Rae (Navalny). Rapper Abu Hajar, together with other creative personalities of the Syrian uprising, a post-Rock musician (Anas Maghrebi), members of the first all-female Syrian rock band (Bahila Hijazi + Lynn Mayya), break-dancer (Bboy Shadow), choreographer (Medhat Aldaabal), and visual artists (Tammam Azzam, Omar Imam + Diala Brisly), use their art to rise in revolution and endure in exile in this new documentary reflecting on a battle for peace, justice and freedom of expression. It is an uplifting and humanizing look at what it means to be a refugee in today’s world and offers inspiring and hopeful vantages on a creative response to the chaos of war.

Life on the Border

October 2015 •Kurdish

The fate of thousands of people is unified under the tarpaulins of the refugee camps in Kobanê and in Shingal. Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi has given eight children the opportunity to use a camera to tell their own stories. Each film gives us a glimpse into the plight of the children, as seen through their own eyes. Their stories tell of young people with their whole lives ahead of them, though they’ve already lost almost everything. At a certain point, the film crew leaves the camp and follows the 13-year-old Mahmod and his sister in the search for his parent‘s house in Kobanê. The town has been ravaged by the war and all the children find is rubble. The eight films reveal the courage and openness of the young filmmakers, who share their stories with great intensity, realism and poetry, despite their harsh fate.

It Will be Chaos

June 2018 •Arabic

Part road-movie and part intimate portrait of lives in transit, IT WILL BE CHAOS unfolds between Italy and the Balkan corridor, intercutting two unforgettable refugees stories of human strength and resilience.

Mission Congo

September 2013 •English

A documentary that examines whether a charity organized by Pat Robertson to aid Rwandan genocide refugees was a front for diamond mining.

The Breidjing Camp

December 2015 •French

Claire Denis goes to Eastern Chad to the Breidjing camp, the home of 40,000 refugees from Darfur. With great humility, she tells the stories of these men and women, victims of one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes that this century has seen so far.

Dyab

January 2016 •Kurdish

12-year-old Dyab is a Kurdish Yazidi boy living at Arbat refugee camp, after the horrendous attacks by the Islamic States on their villages at Shingal Mountains (Sinjar). However, Dyab’s dream is, to become a filmmaker and actor and tell the stories and sufferings of his people to the outside world.

Algerian Refugees

January 1958 •French

Directed by Pierre Clément and Djamel-Eddine Chanderli, produced by the FLN Information Service in 1958, this film is a rare document. Pierre Clément is considered one of the founders of Algerian cinema. In this film he shows images of Algerian refugee camps in Tunisia and their living conditions. A restored DVD version released in 2016, from the 35 mm original donated by Pierre Clément to the Contemporary International Documentation Library (BDIC).

Borderless

May 2019 •English

Lauren Southern investigates what is really happening at Europe’s borders. From interviews with human traffickers in Morocco to secret recordings of illegal NGO activity in Greece, Borderless will blow the European Border Crisis wide open.

Ta'ang

March 2016 •Burmese

The Ta'ang or Palaung people, an ethnic minority living in the mountainous area between Myanmar's Kokang region and China's Yunnan province, have historically suffered many forced migrations due to war. When their survival is threatened again in 2015, thousands of them flee across the border. Filmmaker Wang Bing accompanies them and becomes a privileged witness to a human story that is both a modern reportage and a mythical epic.

The Donut King

August 2020 •English

Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy builds a multi-million dollar empire by baking America's favourite pastry: the doughnut.

A Step Without Feet

September 2020 •English

Documentary about sharing our cultures through universal themes like music, family, friends, and art. Within the backdrop of Berlins winter landscape, we captured the daily lives of seven extraordinary Syrians exiled from their home.

Song of Umm Dalaila, the Story of the Sahrawis

January 1993 •English

Takes place in the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria against the historical backdrop of Spanish colonialism and the Moroccan invasion of the Western Sahara. The Saharawi women, who make up 80% of the adult refugee population, provide a powerful voice as they reveal how they came to assume primary responsibility for the survival of the remains of their families and in turn the entire refugee population.

Unsettled: Seeking Refuge in America

April 2019 •English

Powerfully and heartbreakingly detailing the challenging process that LGBTQ refugees must go through to find safety and security while starting over in the US, Tom Shepard’s inspiring new documentary profiles four people who have come to San Francisco to save their own lives. Over the course of this unforgettable group portrait, Subhi (from Syria), Junior (from Congo), and Mari and Cheyenne (from Angola) experience roadblocks and triumphs as they reflect on their respective histories and try to create a home for themselves in an environment that is not always welcoming. Once in San Francisco, they are met with setbacks but each maintains hope for a better future – Mari and Cheyenne record an album, Subhi starts a tour speaking on behalf of Syrian refugees and finds love, while Junior faces challenges of homelessness and gender non-conformance.

Born in Syria

November 2016 •Spanish

This intimate documentary follows a group of Syrian children refugees who narrowly escape a life of torment and integrate into a foreign land.

Privacy of Wounds

November 2018 •Arabic

Set as an experiment in a simulated cell in Oslo, three former political prisoners are locked up for three days with no film crew, to revisit their memories of Syria's darkest detention facilities.

Český Alláh

January 2018 •Czech

Between Borders

May 2017 •Serbian

The film follows the refugee crisis in 2015 and 2016 from the perspective of a young Lebanese woman, Boushra Jaber. She came to Serbia in 2015 to work on her PhD. Driven by a deep desire to help she started working as an Arabic translator in a refugee camp in Presevo, on the Serbian-Macedonian border. During her three months in the field, Boushra faced personal and professional challenges that put her beliefs to the test.

Black Box Syria: The Dirty War

October 2020 •German

A look back over nine years of the Syrian Civil War, an inextricable conflict, like a black box, due to the competing interests of the many factions in presence and those of the foreign powers.

The Walk

November 2023 •Arabic

Asil is a young Syrian refugee awaiting documents in Turkey while processing the trauma of losing her home and family. Her story gives voice to a charming gigantic puppet named Amal, who represents millions of migrant and displaced children in a walk from the Syrian border in Turkey all the way across Europe. Escorted and animated by a group of puppeteers who are themselves refugees, Amal’s epic journey is one of compassion and discovery.

For the Love of Rutland

May 2020 •English

After an attempt to bring Syrian refugees into the predominately white New England town of Rutland, Vermont, unleashes deep partisan rancor, a longtime Rutland resident emerges as an unexpected leader in a town divided by class, cultural values, and divisive politics.