Global Migration Film Festival: Refugee documentary featured at Erbil’s UKH
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – This is Home: A Refugee Story left an audience at the University of Kurdistan Hewler visibly moved on Monday night. The unvarnished examination of Syrian refugees struggling to resettle in the US city of Baltimore, Maryland, elicited tears, laughter, and reflection.
The 90 minute documentary, produced by American filmmaker Alexandra Shiva, was one of 30 official selections culled from an international call for submissions for the Global Migration Film Festival, an annual event run by the United Nations Migration Agency (IOM).
The films are being screened in more than 100 countries between November 28 and December 18. The University of Kurdistan Hewler (UKH) was asked to host Iraq’s official participation in the festival.
“The University of Kurdistan has been cooperating with IOM and even other international organizations and we have held different activities together, but today’s event was very special. It was an amazing movie that was shown... I got goose bumps in some of the scenes. It was emotional in some other scenes,” Karokh Nuraddin Othman, UKH director of public relations, told Rudaw.
Introducing the festival, Giovanni Cassani, head of the IOM office in Erbil and head of programs in Iraq, said the festival was first launched in 2016 “based on the premise that film is an effective tool for informing, entertaining, and discussing [with] large audiences about migration”.
“The festival aims to influence the perceptions of and attitudes towards migrants by bringing attention to social issues and creating safe spaces for respectful debate and interaction.”
Nathalie, a member of the audience who works for Oxfam, said: “I came to see the movie mainly because I’m interested to learn a little bit more about the challenges faced when they resettle. I think the movie was really great and very genuine – you could really feel the different issues and emotions of the people.”
Yousif, a University of Canberra PhD candidate who was born in Mosul but grew up abroad, is visiting Erbil to explore business opportunities. He heard about the Global Migration Film Festival while attending a workshop last week, and decided to come watch the documentary.
“It captures all the essence of how people adapt to different places and the struggles they face throughout the settlement; the role of the host country, and what they provide to the families – this is very realistic,” Yousif told Rudaw after the screening.
Also in the audience were Brigadier Zaher Taher Zanawer, head of the Community Policing Directorate for the Kurdistan Regional Government, and Brigadier Ghalib Atia, head of the Community Policing Department for the Federal Government of Iraq.
Before the documentary, IOM screened a short film about community policing that was filmed and directed by Hamdaniya native Younis Qais Ibrahim. Ibrahim made the film after attending a storytelling workshop for filmmakers as part of an ongoing IOM community policing initiative in Iraq.
Vanessa Okoth-Obbo, public information officer for IOM Iraq, said: “Because a lot of our work supports internally displaced persons, returnees, and host communities, that’s the link to migration for us in this context. Also, it’s nice to be able to show a locally made film here tonight.”
IOM Iraq chose to screen This Is Home at the Erbil event because it was the strongest official selection featuring Arabic language content, Okoth-Obbo said.
“[The film] doesn’t feature Iraq per se, but we thought it would be nice to have a film that uses Arabic because it could be understood by a wider public here.”
After the screening, IOM office chief Cassani said: “I think it’s a very true movie, a very fair movie. It doesn’t try to depict a fluffy reality... I think the movie shows what the limits are, it shows what the tensions are, what the cultural clash is, what [gets] lost in translation.”
“Migration is a hot topic around the world at the moment, and I think the more debate, the more understanding of the phenomenon, the better it is for the world.”
The 90 minute documentary, produced by American filmmaker Alexandra Shiva, was one of 30 official selections culled from an international call for submissions for the Global Migration Film Festival, an annual event run by the United Nations Migration Agency (IOM).
The films are being screened in more than 100 countries between November 28 and December 18. The University of Kurdistan Hewler (UKH) was asked to host Iraq’s official participation in the festival.
“The University of Kurdistan has been cooperating with IOM and even other international organizations and we have held different activities together, but today’s event was very special. It was an amazing movie that was shown... I got goose bumps in some of the scenes. It was emotional in some other scenes,” Karokh Nuraddin Othman, UKH director of public relations, told Rudaw.
Introducing the festival, Giovanni Cassani, head of the IOM office in Erbil and head of programs in Iraq, said the festival was first launched in 2016 “based on the premise that film is an effective tool for informing, entertaining, and discussing [with] large audiences about migration”.
“The festival aims to influence the perceptions of and attitudes towards migrants by bringing attention to social issues and creating safe spaces for respectful debate and interaction.”
Nathalie, a member of the audience who works for Oxfam, said: “I came to see the movie mainly because I’m interested to learn a little bit more about the challenges faced when they resettle. I think the movie was really great and very genuine – you could really feel the different issues and emotions of the people.”
Yousif, a University of Canberra PhD candidate who was born in Mosul but grew up abroad, is visiting Erbil to explore business opportunities. He heard about the Global Migration Film Festival while attending a workshop last week, and decided to come watch the documentary.
“It captures all the essence of how people adapt to different places and the struggles they face throughout the settlement; the role of the host country, and what they provide to the families – this is very realistic,” Yousif told Rudaw after the screening.
Also in the audience were Brigadier Zaher Taher Zanawer, head of the Community Policing Directorate for the Kurdistan Regional Government, and Brigadier Ghalib Atia, head of the Community Policing Department for the Federal Government of Iraq.
Before the documentary, IOM screened a short film about community policing that was filmed and directed by Hamdaniya native Younis Qais Ibrahim. Ibrahim made the film after attending a storytelling workshop for filmmakers as part of an ongoing IOM community policing initiative in Iraq.
Vanessa Okoth-Obbo, public information officer for IOM Iraq, said: “Because a lot of our work supports internally displaced persons, returnees, and host communities, that’s the link to migration for us in this context. Also, it’s nice to be able to show a locally made film here tonight.”
IOM Iraq chose to screen This Is Home at the Erbil event because it was the strongest official selection featuring Arabic language content, Okoth-Obbo said.
“[The film] doesn’t feature Iraq per se, but we thought it would be nice to have a film that uses Arabic because it could be understood by a wider public here.”
After the screening, IOM office chief Cassani said: “I think it’s a very true movie, a very fair movie. It doesn’t try to depict a fluffy reality... I think the movie shows what the limits are, it shows what the tensions are, what the cultural clash is, what [gets] lost in translation.”
“Migration is a hot topic around the world at the moment, and I think the more debate, the more understanding of the phenomenon, the better it is for the world.”