Refugee Film Festival

Age Restriction K-12

 

Bisrat
Directed by Anna Blom
11 min, D
Language: Somali
Subtitles: English

 

On 3 October 2013, a fishing boat carrying Eritrean refugees sank off the island of Lampedusa. At least 368 died and 155 survived. Bisrat is part of a short film series Remembering Lampedusa where the survivors tell what actually happened.

 

Aisti minut
Directed by Ada Johnsson and Youssef Asad Alkhatib
5 min, F
Language: Finnish

 

Sami, who arrived in Finland from Syria, ends up in equine therapy to deal with the trauma of sexual violence in his past. He finds it difficult to trust people. But everything changes when he gets to know an old horse, Uuras.
Aisti minut (Eng. I Am Here) short film is a story about friendship and building trust again in equine therapy. Based on true events.

 

Kolme sukupolvea pakolaisuudessa
Director: Kerttu Matinpuro
2016
11 min
Language: Finnish, French
Finnish and English subtitles

 

Three Generations is a poetic short documentary about the Western Saharans in refugee camps in Sahara desert in Algeria. Western Saharan Sahrawis escaped into the desert after Morocco and Mauritania occupied the Western Sahara in mid 1970s. Conflict is still unresolved and many of the escaped Sahrawis still live in refugee camps. The film was born after the young director visited the camps in 2011 and 2015 and wanted to tell about the silenced fate of Western Saharans.

 

 

Aysha
Directed by Cengiz Akaygun
2021, 13 min, F
Language: Kurdish, Arabic
Subtitles: English

Aysha shares a story of two young girls living through a harrowing war and family tensions. Aysha (10) and her sister (11) are out to a religious test in a backyard in Rojava, Syria. The stronghead Aysha is struggling with identity and secrets and takes a stand.

 

You can’t stop the music
Directed by Hashim Didari
25 min, D
Language: Dari
Subtitles: English

 

What happens when you can no longer practice the profession that is part of your identity? You Can’t Stop the Music is a portrait from today’s Afghanistan, where life in the shadow of the Taliban can at times seem surreal.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Akbar Adeli was a music student at Kabul University. For conservative Afghans, music had been suspect even before the Taliban takeover, but it soon became a gamble with one’s life – especially since Akbar plays Western pop music.

Akbar stashed his guitar in a secret hiding spot, but the pull of music was too great. When a friend asked him to play in a project, Akbar fetched his guitar, put it in a sack and started rehearsing with the group. Eventually, however, the Taliban were tipped off, and Akbar returned his guitar to its hiding place. Now he dreams of a time when freedom has returned to Kabul, when artists, journalists and musicians are free to pursue their vocations.

 

Before long, the Taliban will take Akbar to task. Akbar and his parents are forced to make a difficult decision about Akbar's future.

 

Screening is open for all!