283MC Transcultural Film Assignment

Ning Yao
Student ID: 6676515
Nowadays, there is a serious social issue happens in the world, that is the refugee problem.
By the unstable international events, many immigrants and refugees get out of their homes
since the “Arab spring” and the Syria civil war broke out, rushed to European countries for
seeking asylum. Most of the refugees are coming from Syria, Afghanistan and State of
Eritrea. The worsening European immigration issue erupted by the nearly 1 million Syria
refugees rushed into Europe in 2015. The story of refugees and migrants has been the subject
of the 2016 Berlin international film festival, Berlin international film festival is ever closely
connected with politics, this film festival is seeking between politics, literature and art, and
the most significant thing is it shows humanistic care (Pulver, 2017). The highest honour of
Berlin international film festival “Golden Bear” has been taken by a documentary on refugee
crisis called “Fuocoammare” (Fire at Sea). Actually, Berlin film festival has been a long time
to focused on the theme of refugees and immigrants, but they explored more deeply in 2016.
This essay will study two typical refugee cinema and the problems existed in Mediterranean
Sea countries, research the background, reason and solution of these reality issues by
analysing films, society and polity. People should pay more attention to refugee problem in
some undeveloped country and these refugee cinemas can take into account both art and
polity part to show solicitude for the refugee.

First of all, we need to comprehend the background of social refugee situation before we start
to analyse refugee films. There were nearly 1 million refugees from Syria rushed into Europe
in 2015 and this is only one country’s refugee statistics, Iraq and Afghanistan also have a lot
of refugees. Many migrants from the Middle East and Africa crossed into Turkey and Greece
between 2007 and 2011, and then after the Syria civil war broke out in 2011, a large number
of Syrians fled abroad, although their neighbour countries Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan
received a lot of refugees, but more refugees and migrants want to residence in more affluent
place like Europe (BBC News, 2016). By this wave of refugees, many people from
undeveloped country stowaway into Europe illegally, this situation also reflects these nation’s
social and economic crises from the other side. Because these countries’ economic is doing
poorly and the unemployment rate is higher like Albania, Kosovo and Serbia, many people
want to make a living in some developed country like Germany (Alisic and Letschert, 2016).
According to statistics, there were more than fifteen thousand people died in the
Mediterranean Sea when they tried to smuggle themselves into other country. Migrant vessel
incidents on the Mediterranean Sea emerge in endlessly, a Syrian refugees ship capsized in an
accident, a child’s body was washed up on the coast of Turkey, his puny body lying on the
beach and those tragic scenes in TV news has been torture people’s conscience every time.
Some researchers and scholars named this wave of refugees as Europe refugee crisis and
European governments were implement new laws and regulations to solve this issue though
sponsoring these refugees and accept appropriate amount of refugees. Those people include
refugee, smuggler and some asylum seeker.

The most recently famous refugee film has to be fire at sea, the 2016 Berlin film festival
laureate. This film awards not because of the moving story or the original shooting skill, but
it touched the human nerve pain point also is these year’s news hot spots all over the world,
the refugee problem. The director of this documentary accounts his country by poetic
shooting and narrates the life of the ordinary people. This film focuses on two kinds of
people, one is permanent residents of the Mediterranean, another one is the refugees on and
off this island. For the first one, the director tells a story of a fisherman’s family life who live
on the Lampedusa island, describe this perennial island and observed escaped refugees on
and off through the eye of a naughty child. Lampedusa is an isolated island in the
Mediterranean Sea, located at the southern of Italy, most of the indigenous people earn them
living by fishing, this island is 205 kilometres distant from Sicily and only 113 kilometres
distant from Tunisia in Africa, so this small island has become the best transit for African
refugees crossing, they landing Italy from here and rush into European continent (Ponzanesi,
2016). This film also shows the world refugee situation, in the beginning of the film there is a
refugee ship ask Italian navy for help by radio because their ship will sink soon. And there is
another action in this film, the rescue team rescued more than one hundred people from a
small fishing boat, they also found more than 50 bodies under the cabin died because of the
airtight cabin, muggy and dehydration. In this movie, the inhabitants of the island having a
different situation. Samuele as a fisherman’s son has a carefree life on this island, mess
around on this island and make a slingshot to catch birds every day, except he need worry
about his English and need to see a doctor because he felt difficulty breathing. This is a
normal human life; the director makes this as another line to intertwined with refugees’ story,
he makes this line as a kind of warm and bright colour in this film, it can let audience relieve
and know human have innocence and happiness beyond suffering from the stifling and
despair atmosphere (Ponzanesi, 2016). But Samuele’s family are not knowing nothing about
sadness like Samuel, the Mediterranean Sea is the sea of escape or death for the refugees, but
for those fishermans and inhabitants, the Mediterranean Sea is the sea of living. These
residents’ everything is from this sea, but the sea is not enough generous for them, they
always need to worry about the bad weather destroy their catches and still have to sneak into
the bottom of the sea in the dark night for fishing. One thing they are lucky than refugees is
they live in a stable state and has system security. But the arrival of those immigrants
disturbed their peaceful life and make them become more difficult to earn a living. Refugees
get into the island is not just a sympathy problem for those residents living here, it is also a
realistic issue. This small island only has four thousand residents but there were nearly seven
thousand refugees on this island in the peak time. Refugees not only make the former quiet
disappeared and also leave people some security problems, at the same time it was a fatal
blow to the economy of Lampedusa, tourists no longer come to this island for holiday
because of too many refugees there, those reasons make residents’ normal living become a
huge problem. The Italian government have to arrange few ships on Mediterranean Sea to be
ready to rescue refugees, the biggest problem is that the refugee resettlement issue and the
resulting security problems, it is a huge financial burden for the Italian government. For
refugees, they also have the right to pursue a better life, most of them are from the war-torn
country or genocide, they were suffering from extreme religious persecution, under the
conditions of extreme poverty or fleeing in tribal traditions. This movie also has a description
of refugees; they try to escape from their ancestral land and move to Mediterranean Sea from
the interior of Africa. These refugees have experienced many difficulties, they walk through
the war zone and cross the desert, poised between life and death, they sold all their
belongings and risk their life to leave their home, they are still full of hope about the future.

Fire at sea will be a classic refugee movie forever, and there is also some impressive refugee
film just like Hotel Rwanda. Hotel Rwanda adapted based on a true story, narrate a touching
story about Paul Rusesabagina a hotel manager rescued more than 1000 helpless refugees
from genocide in 1994. In Rwanda there are mainly two kinds of people, Tutsi and Hutu,
Rwanda was Belgian colony before Rwanda independence in 1962, Belgian colonialist made
Tutsi people manage other people because the Tutsis are taller and elegant also has lighter
skin and thinner nose but Tutsis only have 15 percent of the total population. After
independence from Rwanda, Tutsis fled to neighbouring countries because of the genocide of
Hutus, two race of people’s contradiction be aggravated. In 1994, Hutu president’s plane was
crashed by unidentified hit, Hutus maintained that this incident was made by Tutsis and they
started a genocide. International community decided not to intervene and retreat the UN
peacekeeping force, after that, French troops evacuate all the write people from Rwanda.
From the racial conflict in April to July 1994, there were nearly ten thousand people were
killed, that is equivalent to 1/9 of the Rwanda population, 94% of the victims were Tutsis. In
addition, there were also 2 million people become refugee, perhaps this is one of the purest
and deadly ethnic cleansing after the end of the second world war (Gudehus, Anderson and
Keller, 2010). Paul is Hutu but his wife is Tutsi, protect his Tutsi relatives and friends
becoming the biggest mission and challenge in his life. UN peacekeepers’ inaction and the
isolated from the world’s media makes Paul and all the refugees get more confidence and
courage to survive, Paul said that he must let the world feel ashamed about no proper action
for Rwanda. The Hotel has become the oasis of the desert for those refugees. There are a few
impressed movie clips kept my memory fresh, one is a western journalist said to Paul that if
people see the footage of slaughter they will say oh my god, that is horrible, and then they go
on eat their dinners. The most horrible thing is to stay numb for these refugees and the
slaughter. Rwanda is not a valuable place for those western countries, it not even worth a
single vote for French, British and American, UN peacekeeper takes all the white people get
off Rwanda and leave millions of refugees suffering. The contradiction between Hutu and
Tutsi cause this conflict, but people’s indifferent action let more innocent people died in fire.
This film did not deliberate depict on terrorist bloody carnage, instead they depict Paul’s
intense heartstrings and the panic of all the travellers and refugees. Hotel Rwanda try to be
played down the cruelty of the real events and it seems like weaken the overall penetration
and expressive force, it uses a lot of details to set off the tense atmosphere and the brutal race
cleansing (Gudehus, Anderson and Keller, 2010). Paul is a smart and nice guy, he tried his
best to save his family and more than thousand refugees, but before UN peacekeeper take all
the western people he is also a normal people doing appeasement behaviour with all the
things he saw. Paul’s shift started when he knew the deep contempt with black people and
Africa of western world. Paul grew up in a country under the control of western country, the
infiltration of the western culture can be seen everywhere in his body; drink whisky, proud of
smoke cigars of 10000 francs, and even defend the decent and noble image of the hotel, but
one day, all the things he believed have abandoned him then he started to defend all the
people and refugees.

Compare these two movies, both of them have earned significant film award and touch
people’s heart, the refugee problem is a hot political issue in the world and these refugee
films make audiences thinking and ask themselves what have they done. Talking about the
pure film part, Fire at sea portrays refugees and islander in two different stories, it is hard to
decide which one is the main story. Islander’s life, especially the boy Samuele give the
audience a relaxed atmosphere, instead, this kind of relaxed atmosphere also makes audience
even more shock and grief when the screen jump to the refugees’ story (Ponzanesi, 2016). In
this film, there is almost no intersection of refugees and islanders, but it sets off some
symbols like the songs and environment to express the main theme of the film. And the
content of Hotel Rwanda is more comprehensive, bloody cruel Hutu fanatics and the later
humanistic care is not the only point, but the interests of European force have been performed
incisively and vividly from the beginning to the end (Gudehus, Anderson and Keller, 2010).
The enemy hiding in the shadows is more let people be bitterly disappointing, from this point,
this film still has depth. Perhaps everyone has different views about these films but the true
thing strings the film and cause audience’s inner resonance should be the emotion, face the
sinister and hardships if reality with humanity care. And from the extended content of these
two films, I think the story happened in Hotel Rwanda is the root cause of Europe refugee
crisis, we have this refugee situation in the world now because of the wars, conflicts and
clash in Africa and some other war-prone areas. The first is the political reason, war and
conflict have displaced people and people have to leave their home to find some safe place to
live, basically, there will not have so many refugees in Europe if no more conflict in Africa
and Mid East. And Europe seems like the best place to go for those refugees because
European countries have the best social welfare in the world and also give those refugees a
chance to work and a safe place to live. Second is the economic reason, most of the refugees
live in poverty in their hometown and they want to earn a better life for their family, like Paul
said in Hotel Rwanda “Family is the first thing to consider”. Those refugees from Africa
countries, one-thousand-euro ticket means ruin for them and they still squeeze into small
fishing boat provide by snakeheads, drifting on the sea about seven days, finally arrive the
land with hope and opportunity. Giving their family and children a better life is all the belief
and hope they have. Political and economic reason make refugees do whatever they can to
rush into Europe.

Furthermore, the audience can also understand some other things through refugee film, some
deep problems. Now the refugee problem is a worldwide problem also seems to be an
unsolved problem. From nearly one hundred years’ human history, famine, floods, droughts,
earthquakes and other natural disasters cannot cause massive refugee influx, and regional
political conflict, war, and ethnic cleansing is the important reason leading nowadays refugee
crisis (Alisic and Letschert, 2016). Europe and The United States as the main refugee
receiving countries, also face to a difficult choice, first these governments need to consider
both security and social issues because the influx of refugees brings peaceful Europe a
serious security challenge and conflicts, many ACTS of terrorism in Europe were carried out
by refugees over the past two years. Secondly, from the humanitarian thinking, these country
have to admit a large amount of refugees, or they will face huge pressure from humanitarian
and the public opinion. But obviously, keep taking refugees into Europe is not a solution for
Europe refugee crisis, people should resolve this problem fundamentally because many
Africa countries do not have full structure form of state and it leads to lots of conflicts
between tribes and countries (Alisic and Letschert, 2016). On this current situation of Africa,
the international community is almost giving up responsibility in addition to basic
humanitarian aid because of the principle of non-interference in internal affairs. And the
international community’s attitude leads to internal conflict escalating, and finally caused
numerous humanitarian disaster just like what happened in Hotel Rwanda. Doing some
intervention based on the principles of the international political civilization is the feasible
way to solve the problem of refugees.

In summary, this kind of refugee documentary films like Fire at sea and Hotel Rwanda
reflects the current worldwide events objectively and also show the film artistic value. There
are some film commentators think that these recent film and documentary put too much
emphasis on political and ignored the literature and art aesthetics, but film should find a path
for both of art and politics, and create meaningful film production (Gemunden, 2016). These
documentary films makes the world know about refugees’ life, let the world know they need
to do something to change this situation. Fire at sea is one of the best documentaries in
decades, I have to say that it is a compact, imaginative and indispensable film, blending the
real material and elaborate narrative, let the audience think what documentary can do. And
the most important part in these two film is “see”, audiences saw the refugee drifting in the
sea, saw the innocence Tutsis killed by the army, also saw the things which they never
experienced. After people see, everyone has a feeling that they want to do something they
can, that is the charm of the documentary film.
Reference
Alisic, E. and Letschert, R. (2016). Fresh eyes on the European refugee
crisis. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 7(1), p.31847.
BBC News. (2017). Why is EU struggling with migrants and asylum? - BBC News.
[online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24583286
[Accessed 25 Mar. 2017].
Gemünden, G. (2016). Over the Fence, Across the Water: The 66th Berlin Film
Festival. Film Criticism, 40(3).
Gudehus, C., Anderson, S. and Keller, D. (2010). Understanding Hotel Rwanda: A
reception study.Memory Studies, 3(4), pp.344-363.
Ponzanesi, S. (2016). Of shipwrecks and weddings: borders and mobilities in
Europe. Transnational Cinemas, 7(2), pp.151-167.
Pulver, A. (2017). Why Fire at Sea sailed away with the Berlin film festival's
Golden Bear. [online] the Guardian. Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/feb/22/fire-at-sea-berlin-film-festival-
golden-bear-gianfranco-rosi-migrant-crisis [Accessed 23 Mar. 2017].