"We, the Yazidis, became doves. Doves without wings", says Hedil. Stranded with her family in a Yazidi refugee camp in Eastern Turkey, she reminisces about her former life in Northern Iraq and recounts the horrors of her escape. The film follows two families' attempts at normality in an otherwise miserable place. (ML)
A unique interview with Tooba Gondal, the woman who groomed and lured scores of Western women to join ISIS. Using social media, she became a deadly matchmaker, recruiting a number of high-profile “jihadi brides” for ISIS militants in Syria: she allegedly helped organise the transporting of three British schoolgirls, including Shamima Begum, to Syria.
The Matchmaker
2022
5
During the Syrian civil war, the district of Yarmouk, home to thousands of Palestinians, became the scene of dramatic and ferocious fighting. Little Palestine (Diary of a Siege) is a film that follows the destiny of civilians during the brutal sieges, imposed by the Syrian regime, that took place in the wake of the battles. With his camera, Abdallah Al-Khatib composes a love song to a place that proudly resists the atrocities of war.
فلسطيننا الصغيرة
2021
7
13-year-old Khodor is a child whose family tries to issue him an ID document that proves his existence and gives him the right to education, health-care and movement outside of the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila in Beirut, Lebanon. Through the process, many of the family's old secrets are revealed.
ابن الشوارع
2020
0
As the Syrian war continues to leave entire generations without education, health care, or a state, Lost in Lebanon closely follows four Syrians during their relocation process. The resilience of this Syrian community, which currently makes up one fifth of the population in Lebanon, is astoundingly clear as its members work hard to collaborate, share resources, and advocate for themselves in a new land. With the Syrian conflict continuing to push across borders, lives are becoming increasingly desperate due to the devastating consequences of new visa laws that the Lebanese government has implemented, leaving families at risk of arrest, detention, and deportation. Despite these obstacles, the film encourages us to look beyond the staggering statistics of displaced refugees and focus on the individuals themselves.
Lost in Lebanon
2017
8
A very personal and dynamic meditation on the current global refugee crisis through the eyes and voices of campaigners, specially children, where past and present establish a dialogue. A reflection on the importance of human rights.
Sea Sorrow
2017
5
Takes place in the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria against the historical backdrop of Spanish colonialism and the Moroccan invasion of the Western Sahara. The Saharawi women, who make up 80% of the adult refugee population, provide a powerful voice as they reveal how they came to assume primary responsibility for the survival of the remains of their families and in turn the entire refugee population.
Song of Umm Dalaila, the Story of the Sahrawis
1993
0
A film about the unprecedented Swiss grassroots movement of regular citizens who rise to aid thousands of refugees stranded at the European borders. In rich and safe Switzerland people from all backgrounds leave their regular life behind to support people in need. There is a Swiss farmer and his wife who keep cows in the Swiss Alps, a former commander of the Swiss Army, an elder rich lady residing at the lakeside, and a successful comedian and entertainer. These unexperienced volunteers take on an adventure that will change their lives forever.
Volunteer
2020
10
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.
Warehoused
2017
0
A Palestinian grain miller in a Jordanian refugee camp safeguards her culture and shares her people’s history through food prepared with love, longing, and sumud—the Palestinian spirit of steadfastness.
Aisha's Story
2025
0
Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy builds a multi-million dollar empire by baking America's favourite pastry: the doughnut.
The Donut King
2020
7
Directed by Pierre Clément and Djamel-Eddine Chanderli, produced by the FLN Information Service in 1958, this film is a rare document. Pierre Clément is considered one of the founders of Algerian cinema. In this film he shows images of Algerian refugee camps in Tunisia and their living conditions. A restored DVD version released in 2016, from the 35 mm original donated by Pierre Clément to the Contemporary International Documentation Library (BDIC).
Réfugiés Algériens
1958
10
Two Americans deliberately head to the edge of war, just seven miles from the Syrian border, to live among 80,000 uprooted refugees in Jordan's Za'atari refugee camp.
Salam Neighbor
2015
7
An intimate, and often humorous, portrait of three generations of exile in the refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh, in southern Lebanon. Based on a wealth of personal recordings, family archives, and historical footage, the film is a sensitive, and illuminating study of belonging, friendship, and family in the lives of those for whom dispossession is the norm, and yearning their daily lives.
عالم ليس لنا
2014
8
The fate of thousands of people is unified under the tarpaulins of the refugee camps in Kobanê and in Shingal. Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi has given eight children the opportunity to use a camera to tell their own stories. Each film gives us a glimpse into the plight of the children, as seen through their own eyes. Their stories tell of young people with their whole lives ahead of them, though they’ve already lost almost everything. At a certain point, the film crew leaves the camp and follows the 13-year-old Mahmod and his sister in the search for his parent‘s house in Kobanê. The town has been ravaged by the war and all the children find is rubble. The eight films reveal the courage and openness of the young filmmakers, who share their stories with great intensity, realism and poetry, despite their harsh fate.
Life on the Border
2015
9
Within a few months, the Kutupalong refugee camp has become the biggest in the world. Out of sight, 700,000 people of the Rohingya Muslim minority fled Myanmar in 2017 to escape genocide and seek asylum in Bangladesh. Prisoners of a major yet little publicized humanitarian crisis, Kalam, Mohammad, Montas and other exiles want to make their voice heard. Between poetry and nightmares, food distribution and soccer games, they testify to their daily realities and the ghosts of their past memories. Around them, the spectre of wandering, waiting, disappearing. In this place almost out of space and time, is it still possible to exist?
Errance sans retour
2021
8
The Ta'ang or Palaung people, an ethnic minority living in the mountainous area between Myanmar's Kokang region and China's Yunnan province, have historically suffered many forced migrations due to war. When their survival is threatened again in 2015, thousands of them flee across the border. Filmmaker Wang Bing accompanies them and becomes a privileged witness to a human story that is both a modern reportage and a mythical epic.
Ta'ang
2016
5
A harrowing account of Europe's migrant crisis. A family of Syrian refugees separated by the borders of Europe, fight to be reunited as they migrant from Syria to Germany.
Refugee
2018
8
Documentary about the humanitarian crisis of the refugees between 2015 and 2018
Los burgueses de Calais
0
Milena, a young woman from Ukraine, who along with her mother and grandmother (and cat), desperately struggle to escape their war- torn home while an army of supporters on the opposite side of the world fight to keep them safe. Milena survived the destruction of Mariupol, cowering for a month in the basement of a bombed-out building, watching her home and history burn. She managed to contact Ken Pontac, long-time Facebook friend and father figure. Their conversations bolstered Milena's spirits while Ken listened with growing apprehension.
Out from the Ashes
2024
0
Rafi, Salman, Said and Ali are all under 18 years old. They come from Afghanistan, Syria and Pakistan. After months of wandering, fleeing wars in their country, they found themselves stuck in Calais, where they are trying to survive, waiting for something better. Their dream: to get to England. How? By climbing into containers or slipping onto the axles of trucks, risking their lives. Who cares about these isolated minors in the Calais Jungle, the largest slum in Europe?
The Lost Kids of Calais
2017
0