The Diary of Immaculée

In this moving documentary, Oscar-nominated filmmakers Peter LeDonne and Steve Kalafer chronicle the extraordinary life of Immaculée Ilibagiza, a young African woman who escaped genocide in Rwanda and ultimately found refuge in the United States. Seeking shelter with an Episcopalian minister, Immaculée hid from her attackers inside a bathroom for three long months but stayed centered through prayer and faith.

Mr. Gay Syria

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.

Draussen bleiben

Ahmed's Story: Life in Limbo

The story of Ahmed Albarjo, a man living in Malta struggling to secure Refugee Status. Made in collaboration with Spark 15 and RAAH.

Warehoused

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.

Ukrainians in Exile

A documentary that follows Anya, a woman residing in Ukraine during the early stages of the war, who tells her story and contemplates how countries will treat her fellow Ukrainians who were forced to flee.

The Last Season

In search of the lucrative matsutake mushroom, two former soldiers discover the means to gradually heal their wounds of war. Roger, a self-described 'fall-down drunk' and sniper in Vietnam, and Kouy, a Cambodian refugee who fought the Khmer Rouge, bonded in the bustling tent-city known as Mushroom Camp, which pops up each autumn in the Oregon woods. Their friendship became an adoptive family; according to a Cambodian custom, if you lose your family like Kouy, you must rebuilt it anew. Now, however, this new family could be lost. Roger's health is declining and trauma flashbacks rack his mind; Kouy gently aids his family before the snow falls and the hunting season ends, signaling his time to leave.

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

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.

Love Letters in Somalia

In this epistolary film, the traveler gives us his impressions of Africa parallel to the expression of his amorous distress. The images of the present intertwine with the incessant echoes of lost love, combining intimate pain with the misery of a country torn apart by internal struggles and poverty.

Human Flow

More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq.

Ghetto 59

Nearly 20 years since the end of the 1992-95 Bosnian war, there are people who still live in refugee Centers, usually located on the outskirts of cities and villages. In such centers what should have been temporary has become indefinite. Collecting medicinal herbs or scraps from nearby coal mines and raising children who were born as refugees in their own country are just some aspects of the monotonous daily life of the people in Ježevci.

Milad - My planet...

​Jelani secretly married a woman from a different tribe. They fled their country in order to avoid being killed. On foot – and every other way they could – they arrived at a river, months later. Some people die crossing it; others swim across it and enter Europe. But, once they set foot in the first European country, Greece, they found themselves and their children homeless and socially excluded, without being able to move on or go back. Their only solution is to enter Germany illegally, the smugglers say. But they have no money to pay for the whole family to travel. Jelani is faced with the dilemma: If one of the children leaves unaccompanied and arrives safe and sound in Germany, he or she can help the family obtain visas to enter that country. His children will learn in a violent way either how one finds their own planet or how one creates it from scratch; and whether Germany is really the solution or just a new nightmare.

Route 4

Cloud Making Machine

Firas, Jallow and Batoul just arrived in Berlin. They meet one another in a theatre group. They are searching for the good life in Germany - yet things don’t turn out the way they hoped. Through video letters, they reveal their deepest emotions to their families and friends back in their war-torn or poverty-stricken home countries.

The Valley Rebels

Cédric Herrou is a farmer who supports and houses African refugees in the alpine village of Breil-Sur-Roya in southern France. Some regard him as a heroic good Samaritan, but others – including the French border police and state prosecutor – denounce him as the leader of a band of smugglers, bringing migrants from Italy into France while flouting official border controls. As Cedric moves from one prosecution to another, why do he and his fellow activists feel compelled to defy the authorities?

A Day in Smara

The documentary tells the story of one day in Smara, a refugee camp in the south of Algeria. A handmade symbolic toke takes us through the lives of six characters and the reality of the situation in Sahara: The past, present and future of a population without land who want that their words will be heard by the world.

Matar

The story of an asylum seeker in England who, when confronted with the hostile immigration system in the UK, is forced to live on the fringes of society and rely on his bike to survive. Based on the lived experience of co-writer Ayman Alhussein.

Here I Belong

Flora and Louise met in Yaoundé (Cameroon). They fell in love and ever since then have never left each other's side. By pushing open the door of the nonprofit housing them, I discovered the story behind their refugee status and the reasons behind their exile.

Ukraine-Poland: The Border of Solidarity

Since 24 February 2022, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, several million refugees have already been taken in by Poles. In the Lublin region, near the Bug River, which marks the border with Ukraine and Belarus, farmers, shopkeepers, a photographer, and a teacher tell how their daily lives have been transformed by the outbreak of this war.

Beyond Utopia

A courageous pastor uses his underground network to rescue and aid North Korean families as they risk their lives to embrace freedom.