A SPECIAL FILM PROGRAMME FOR REFUGEE WEEK
Moving Worlds is a programme of films available to screen at special rates during Refugee Week, a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees (17-23 June 2019). Moving Worlds is produced by Counterpoints Arts, which coordinates Refugee Week nationally.
Responding to this year’s Refugee Week theme ‘You, me and those who came before’, the 2019 collection is divided into the two themes: Past and Present Migratory Paths and New Beginnings and Communities.
The films as a whole examine personal and collective journeys of belonging, stories of finding one’s new ‘home’ and personal testimonies of resilience.The programme seeks to uncover hidden stories of displacement, draw parallels between past and present asylum-seeking trajectories, as well as allow for intergenerational dialogues to emerge.
We have also chosen films with a strong female voice. Caroline Spearpoint and Miriam Thom’s HAMSA, Scottish Documentary Institute’s anthology Female Voice and short film Little Old One bring into focus stories of women from and in Syria, told by them instead of about them. All three films celebrate female resistance and allow for a re-imagining of one’s place in the world.
We invite you to screen any of these films in unusual places making your own makeshift ‘cinemas’ – from your kitchen, local park, community centre, to schools and workplaces (see Locations and our “How To” screening manual). We have also designed downloadable post-screening guides to encourage lively conversations across all ages.
Our thanks to the creative and passionate filmmakers and producers who generously agreed to make their films available for Refugee Week 2019, Moving Worlds package. Special thanks to Migration Collective and London Migration Festival for their curatorial support.
Here’s how you can access the films:
- Our partners have kindly offered their films for a special bargain rate of £50 screening fee for features and £20 for shorts;
- You can watch short screeners and trailers for each film entry, to give you a taste of these stories and how they might work in your locations and with potential audiences;
- In order to obtain a copy of your chosen film, visit the feature and short film pages and find the specific contact details of the filmmakers and producers/distributors. Some films are managed by our Moving Worlds team. Please cite ‘Moving Worlds, Special Refugee Week Package' in your email to them. Once you’ve chosen a film (or more), check out the post-screening resources to help navigate the public conversations.
Moving Worlds first ran in Dublin, Ireland (2008) as a collaboration between the Forum on Migration and Communications (FOMACS) and with support from the European Union National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC): Alliance Française, British Council, Goethe-Institut Ireland, Instituto Cervantes Dublin and the Austrian Embassy Dublin, in association with the Irish Film Institute.
Moving Worlds UK is curated and programmed by Nelli Stavropoulou for Counterpoints Arts
MOVING WORLDS 2019
SHORTS
For most Londoners home is both in the city and somewhere else… at the other end of a phone line.
Idomeni, 2016. The refugee camp’s liveliness – portrayed through the everyday life of a group of Palestinian friends – converses with the early border stories told by the oldest inhabitant of the village. What then creates the feeling of a home?
Beginning a new life in the small German village of Schnega, Hamsa welcomes the filmmakers into her family’s home to tell them their story, revealing how they have adapted to their new surroundings and how the village have worked to welcome them into their community.
Hedaya and her young sister have lost their home, friends and brother in the battle of Darraya. They have found safety as refugees in Istanbul but Hedaya being the only Turkish speaker member of the family has to act as translator
and head of family for her unemployed dad.
Anyák is a story of how two women of different ethnicities, cultures and generations experienced motherhood. The story is a reflection on the issues of identity and belonging in Europe in the past and today.
A filmmaker from Scotland tries to understand what it means to be between two cultures by spending time with the women in her Algerian family.
Credit: Still from 'HAMSA'
FEATURES
Women in Syria have not only borne the brunt of the country’s lengthy civil
war, they have been marginalised and rendered invisible, despite their huge contribution to the struggle. Yet, few of the stories are told by them.
A bitter-sweet time capsule of alienation, discovery, racism and belonging,
"I For India" is a chronicle of immigration in sixties Britain and beyond,
seen through the eyes of one Asian family and their movie camera.
A former star footballer returns to his home town, but finds his political views aren’t welcome. When he is persuaded to take over coaching the struggling
local footy team, his idea to recruit refugees to make up the numbers takes
the community on a journey of change.
Starting out on foot from Aleppo Syria, we followed the Nabi family for 3 months as they made their way through and the Idomeni refugee camp near Thessaloniki, Greece into the Balkans and through Hungary, Austria and eventually Berlin. Along the way they suffer countless setbacks and heartache—all captured by our cameras with startling intimacy.
Part road-trip, part memoir, part journalistic investigation, REVENIR follows Kumut Imesh, a refugee from the Ivory Coast now living in France, as he returns to the African continent and attempts to retrace the same journey that he himself took when forced to flee civil war in his country … But this time with a camera in his hand.
Credit: Still from 'I For India'
BLOG
COMING SOON - Our interview with 'Feeling of A Home' directors Io Chaviara and Michalis Kastanidis. Credit: Still from 'Feeling of A Home'
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