LSE Literary Festival is delighted to partner with Shorts at the Frontline Club (@frontlineclub), which showcases moving, striking and funny films, exploring the different faces of nonfiction filmmaking. Join us for an evening of short documentaries, from different parts of the world, covering the theme of place and identity.
The programme for the evening will be:
The Call (Directed by Reber Dosky)
Habib and his family were forced to flee their native village in southeast Turkey 25 years ago and moved to Istanbul. Habib returned to his village seven years ago, while his first family didn’t. He remarried and had four more children but misses his only son Ramazan. When Ramazan decides to visit the village for the first time since he was five, Habib will try anything to make his stay permanent.
Xenos (Directed by Mahdi Fleifel)
A bleak tale of lost Lebanese souls in Greece unfolds over the course of a telephone conversation between friends. Stranded in a country gripped by economic catastrophe, refugees have resorted to desperate measures to buy hard drugs for fleeting solace.
Two at the Border (Directed by Tuna Kaptan and Felicitas Sonvilla)
Based in the Turkish city of Edirne, Ali and Naser help refugees cross the border into Greece. European authorities are working hard to patrol the border, which makes the crossing increasingly difficult. In between the preparations to get their clients out of Turkey, they hang around their apartment, smoke and chat about their families at home, where they hope to return one day.
Shipwreck (Directed by Morgan Knibbe)
In October 2013, a boat carrying 500 Eritrean refugees sunk off the coast of the Italian island Lampedusa. More than 360 people drowned. Abraham, one of the survivors, walks through a graveyard of shipwrecks and vividly remembers the nightmarish experience. Meanwhile at the harbour, hundreds of coffins are being loaded onto a military ship.
Adrift (Directed by Frederik Jan Depickere)
Forced to flee his home country of Uganda, Simu now works and lives 150 km above the Arctic Circle. Surrounded by the frozen landscape, he shares his family story.
This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2015, taking place from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 February 2015, with the theme 'Foundations'.