REFUGEE FILM FESTIVAL: JOUTSA 19.-20.01.2024
Schedule
The festival will be held in Joutsan Kino, Nuorisoseuran talo, Jousitie 27, Joutsa
Free entrance to all screenings!
FRIDAY 19.1.
12:00 Short Film Screening
18:00 Io Capitano
SATURDAY 20.1.
12:00 Onneli ja Anneli's Winter
13:30 Opening of Children's Art Exhibition Dreamworld
15:00 Ukraine Screening
18:00 Midnight traveler
Program
Friday
Short Film Screening
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
Aisti minut (Eng. I Am Here) short film is a story about friendship and building trust again in equine therapy. Based on true events.
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.
Io Capitano, Me Captain
Directed by Matteo Garrone
121 min, F, 2023
Language: Wolof, French
Subtitles: English
Age Restriction K-16
Io Capitano is an Italian drama film about two teenage boys from Senegal on a journey from Dakar to Italy. The film won several awards at the Venice Film Festival this year: director Matteo Garrone won the Silver Lion Award, the film was awarded the Unesco Prize and Seydou Sarr, who played the lead role in the film, deservedly won the Best Young Actress award. With him we encounter all the horrors that refugees are subjected to on their journey through North Africa by criminal smugglers. The film is an artful blend of brutal realism and soothing fantasy. When the suffering inflicted by the criminals becomes too painful even for the viewer, the beautifully shot, relieving hallucinations also come to the viewer's rescue. Even in the midst of all the evil, the film finds what is most important to humanity; friendship and the support of fellow human beings.
Saturday
Onneli and Anneli's Winter
Directed by Saara Cantell
1h 20 min
Language: Finnish
Age Restriction S
Best friends Onneli and Anneli are two perfectly ordinary but very happy and lucky little girls who get to live in a house all by themselves. One December evening, a very tiny car, no bigger than a shoebox, turns up at their house. It’s the Vaaksanheimo family, who were made homeless when the tree they were living in was cut down. Onneli and Anneli invite them to take shelter in their dollhouse but it soon turns out that adults have another idea.
A modern story tale about being an outsider and displaced.
Children's Art Exhibition Opening
The children's art exhibition will be organized in connection with the Refugee Film Festival in the movie theatre Joutsan Kino. The art exhibition has been executed by refugee children living in Joutsa and Class 3B of Joutsa Comprehensive School in the direction of resident artist Anna Miller of Haihatus Art Center and Residency.
Ukraina-näytös
Age Restriction K-12
365 astetta
Directed by Hanna Brotherus
2023, 6 min.
A dance film by choreographer Hanna Brotherus and a Finnish-Ukrainian dance group emphasizes the meaning of hope.
Making of 365
2023, 8 min.
Language: Finnish, English
The choreographer Hanna Brotherus and dancer Nina Bulgakova tell about the making of the dance film 365.
waking up in silence
Directed by Mila Zhluktenko & Daniel Asadi Faezi
17 min
Language: Ukrainian, Russian
Subtitles: English
Ukrainian children are confronted with their past as they explore their new home in Germany: a former Wehrmacht military barracks.
Away
Directed by Ruslan Fedotov
2022,29 min
Language: Ukrainian
Subtitles: English
A portrait of 16-year-old Ukrainian refugees Andrey and Alisa, who help out at a school for refugee children in Budapest.
After school, the young couple makes colorful protest artwork out on the streets of the Hungarian capital, sparking discussions between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian passersby.
Midnight Traveller
Dir. Hassan Fazili
86 min.
Language: Dari
Subtitles: English
Age Restriction K-12
When the Taliban puts a bounty on Hassan Fazili’s head, he is forced to flee with his wife and two daughters. Hassan Fazili, his wife Fatima Hossaini who also is a filmmaker and their young daughter Nargis have documented the journey with mobile phone cameras.
Capturing the journey, Fazili shows the dangers facing refugees seeking asylum and the love shared between a family on the run.
