Categories
The feature films listed here are categorised according to their subject matter. We are constantly updating this section so please send us any recommendations of films you feel should be included.
- Refugees and asylum
- Films that refer to refugees
- Migration/illegals
- Statelessness
- Conflict
- Racism
- Trafficking/smuggling
Also check out the ICAR Signpost Series!
This is another great film resource produced by the Information Centre for Refugees and Asylum seekers in the UK. It features fictional films, documentaries, shorts and feature-length films relevant to the refugee experience. The sections are organised by settlement countries and countries of origin, and entries are duplicated where appropriate.
Download the Signpost Series
The Films
Aller simple vers l’hiver
[Belgium, 1999]
Director: Mourad Boucif
The film tells a story of 13-year old refugee Malika, who fights back her tears as she arrives in a small village in Belgium in the winter. Wearing the wrong clothes and unable to speak a word of Dutch, she answers to everything with: “Comprends pas”. Malika tells the story of her long voyage to Europe through the desert and the cargo ship that brought her to Europe. A tale of house searches, arrests of “sans papiers”, closed centres for refugees and solidarity actions.
http://www.bevrijdingsfilms.be/ - see under: filmlijst - vluchtelingen
Arch of Triumph
[USA, 1948]
Director: Lewis Milestone
(based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque)
Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Charles Laughton
In the winter of 1938, Paris is crowded with refugees from the Nazis, who live in the black shadows of night, trying to evade deportation. One such is Dr. Ravic, who practices medicine illegally and stalks his old Nazi enemy Haake with murder in mind. One rainy night, Ravic meets Joan Madou, a kept woman cast adrift by her lover's sudden death. Against Ravic's better judgement, they become involved in a doomed affair; matters come to a crisis on the day war is declared.
Interesting parallels with the precarious situation of present-day asylum seekers.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040109/
Remade as a tv film by Waris Hussein in 1985 with Anthony Hopkins, Lesley-Anne Down and Donald Pleasence (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088734/).
Asylum / (Penaberî)
[Great Britain, 2002]
Director: Nigel Roffe-Barker
Starring: Nabil Elouahabi, Dai Bradley
Mahmoud and his friends Rezghar and Saman, all young Kurdish refugees, have fled political persecution and inevitable imprisonment in northern Iraq by smuggling themselves into England, where they register for asylum and try to establish new lives. Their future is threatened when their genuine claims get bound up in red tape and lost in the system. Saman is detained as an illegal alien and Rezghar evades capture by taking refuge in a Catholic church where Mahmoud joins him. They claim sanctuary and the priest decides to champion their cause. Escalating media and police attention lead to a dramatic conclusion demonstrating the limits of human compassion and the cruelties of the system.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330009/
Baran
[Iran, 2001]
Director: Majid Majidi
Starring: Hossein Abedini, Zahra Bahrami
A love story between a Kurdish worker and a young Afghan girl, disguised as a man in order to work. Through this conventional story the subject of Afghan refugees in Iran is portrayed.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0233841/
Bashu
[Iran, 1989]
Director: Bahram Beiza
Starring: Susan Taslimi, Parvis Pourhosseini
During the Iran-Iraq War, Bashu, a young boy, loses his house and all his family. Scared, he sneaks into a truck that is leaving the area. He gets off the truck in the Northern part of the country, where everything from landscape to language is different. He meets Naii, who is trying to raise her two young children on a farm, while her husband is away. Despite cultural differences, and the fact that they do not speak the same language, Bashu and Naii slowly form a strong bond.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096894/
Belma
[Denmark, 1995]
Director: Lars Hesselholdt
Starring: Emina Isovic, Simon Holk
16-year-old Rasmus' biggest interest is computer games, until he meets Belma who is 15. She lives with her father Josip on a refugee hostel boat and has fled from the war in Bosnia. Josip becomes involved in a terrible act of vengeance against a former prison camp guard and is arrested by the Danish police. Belma is on her own now and Rasmus realizes that he is the only one who can help her.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115651/
Beyond Borders
[USA, 2003]
Director: M. Campbell
Starring: Angelina Jolie
An epic tale of a romance between two persons sharing the same passion for the world’s hot spots. Sarah Jordan (Angelina Jolie) encounters a renegade doctor, whose impassioned plea for help to support his relief efforts in war torn Africa moves her deeply. As a result, she embarks upon a journey to the far corners of the world. The film shows the work of UNHCR in the field.
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0294357/
La blessure (The Wound)
[Belgium, 2004]
Director: Nicolas Klotz
Starring: Noëlle Mobassa, Adama Doumbia
Blandine arrives at Charles de Gaulle Airport to reunite with her husband Papi in Paris. Despite articulate claims for asylum, she is held in a cramped cell along with a number of fellow Africans, humiliated, mistreated and told that they can expect immediate deportation. Papi enquires of her whereabouts at Arrivals, and is met with disinterested, misleading responses.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0412518/
The Boy who stopped talking /(De jongen die niet meer praatte)
[The Netherlands, 1995]
Director: Ben Sombogaart
Starring: Erçan Orhan, Halsho Hussain
Children’s film. Nemo is a nine year old Kurdish boy who lives with his mother and sister in the East of Turkey. His father lives in the Netherlands. When the conflict starts approaching Nemo’s proximity, his father decides to bring his family to the Netherlands, yet Nemo does not want to leave his friends behind. When Nemo realizes that he will stay in the Netherlands for a long time. Out of protest, Nemo decides to stop talking.
http://www.bevrijdingsfilms.be/ - see under: filmlijst - vluchtelingen
Casablanca
[USA, 1942]
Director: Michael Curtiz
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman
A classic on the attempt of refugees to escape from Vichy-régime Morocco.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/
La Ciociara (Two women)
[Italy, 1960]
Director: Vittorio de Sica
Starring: Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo
War drama based on a novel by Alberto Moravia, telling the suffering of a widow and her 13-year old daughter who flee bombardments in Rome at the end on WW2. First Oscar for lead actress Sophia Loren.
Remade as a tv film by director Dino Risi with Sophia Loren (Italy, 1988).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054749/
Clando
[Cameroon, 1996]
Director: Jean-Marie Teno
Starring: Avs Bodule Moukilo, Guillaume Nana
In Douala, Cameroon, Sobgui is a clandestine taxi chauffeur or “Clando”. Everyday he has to put up with the opposition of official taxi drivers and the police. Accused of working against the regime, he is arrested and tortured.
After his release, he goes to his cousin in Germany where he falls in love with a German girl, Irene, who works for refugees. Irene motivates him to change the future of Cameroon, so he decides to return.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126242/
The Crossing
[The Netherlands, 2000]
Director: Nora Hoppe
Starring: Johan Leysen, Behrouz Vossoughi
“The Crossing” is a film about political as well as inner exile. Babak, a 57 year old retired janitor, escaped his homeland Afghanistan 20 years ago. He tried to forget his past, family and home but this is disrupted by Sarban who puts Babak out of balance. Babak’s past starts to infiltrate his thoughts just at the moment he believed to have forgotten it all.
http://www.bevrijdingsfilms.be/ - see under: filmlijst - vluchtelingen
Death in Exile
[Switzerland, 2002]
Director: Ayten Mutlu Saray
Khalil, a Palestinan refugee who grew up in Algeria, is in prison waiting to be deported. Memories of his homeland accompany him during this long wait. The story of the film is based on the real case of Khalil Abuzarifeh who died in Zurich on 3rd March 1999 while awaiting deportation from Switzerland.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317925/
Det nya landet / (The new country)
[Sweden, 2001]
Director: Geir Hansteen Jörgensen
Starring: Mike Almaheya, Michalis Koutsogiannakis
Ali is a 15-year-old Somalian boy who fled his homeland after his family and his whole village was massacred. Massoud, a 40-something Iranian man has fled political persecution and an inevitable death sentence if he were to return to his homeland. They join up in a desperate road trip across their (hopeful) adopted land of Sweden, where they flee the authorities and deportation, but don't really know what they are running to, only what they are running from. Available as a 2 hour feature film or a 4 hour TV series.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0188350/
Les diseurs de vérité (a.k.a : Speakers of the Truth)
[The Netherlands, 1999]
Director: Karim Traodia
Starring: Sid Ahmed Agoumi, Mahmoud Benyacoub
The film tells the story of the Algerian journalist “Sahafi”. During the violence of the 1990s, hundreds of intellectuals, journalist and artists have been killed. Sahafi feels threatened as he is attacked for his satirical articles. He leaves for the Netherlands for a seminar and talks to his friend Madjid about his problem. Madjid advises him to apply for political asylum in the Netherlands, but Sahafi decides to return to Algeria. Ultimately, his power of persuasion helps him to survive.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0235346/
El Norte
[Mexico, 1983]
Director: Gregory Nava
Starring: Zaide Silvia Guliérrez, David Villalpando
A story about a Guatemalan brother and sister forced to flee from their homeland following the death of their father who was targeted by ‘death squads’ for political and ethnic reasons. Theirs is a harrowing tale of flight as they make their way to the US.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0085482/
Les égarés
[France/UK, 2003]
Director: André Téchiné
Starring: Emmanuelle Béart, Gaspard Ulliel
June 1940: young widow Odile finds herself with her two children amidst the flow of refugees on the run for the German invaders. During a German attack they encounter a refugee youth, Yvan. Together they stay in an abandoned country house, but tensions build up between Yvan, Odile and her son.
La Hija Del Puma
[Denmark/Mexico, 1994]
Directors: Asa Faringer, Ulf Hultberg
Starring: Nora Aguirre, Elpidia Carrillo.
This political thriller tells the story of Aschlop, a young Guatemalan Indian girl who witnesses a massacre in her village and is separated from her brother Mateo. Aschlop and her parents flee to a refugee camp in Chiapas, Mexico. Determined to find her brother, Aschlop crosses the border back to Guatemala. With the protection of her guardian spirit, the Puma, she endures a journey and memories of persecution, and displays the dignity and strength of her culture.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110029/
Homecoming, Comrade (Beloiannisz)
[Greece, 1986]
Director: Lefteris Xanthopoulos
Starring: Village of Beloiannizs, Peter Trokan, Athena Papadimitriou
The village of Beloiannisz was built by the political refugees of the Greek civil war 50 kilometers south of Budapest. By December, 1950, 1.800 Greek partisans had settled there. Today the village is emptying. The former political refugees and their children are returning freely to their homeland after 35 years of forced exile. The film begins and ends at just this point in time.
“A handsome, slow moving first feature by a director with considerable experience in documentaries. Whatever fiction there is in this story is only an excuse to lead into an almost entirely documentary portrait of a human tragedy of major proportions.” (VARIETY)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0263517/
Hotel Rwanda
[Canada, 2004]
Director: Terry George
Starring: Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo
The true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395169/
I am David
[USA, 2003]
Director: Paul Feig
Starring: Ben Tibber and James Caviezel
Bulgaria, 1952: in a Communist prison camp, an orphaned boy escapes with a mysterious envelope and instructions to get to Denmark, a country miles — and worlds — away. Dodging police and immigration, he believes he can trust no one, until a kindly, maternal painter takes him in, and discovers the mystery of his past.
(Film supported by UNHCR Washington)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327919/
In this World
[UK, 2002]
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Jamal Udin Mommand, Enayatullah Jumadin
Jamal Udin Torabi is a young Afghan refugee seeking asylum in Britain. Born in Peshawar in the North West province of Pakistan, Jamal and a fellow refugee, Enayatullah Jumadin, are the subjects of Michael Winterbottom’s compelling and all too relevant most recent feature. The film follows them as they set out to travel overland to London, passing through Iran, Turkey, Italy and France – an arduous and life threatening journey which offers constant reminders of the desperation that lies behind it.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0310154/
Kandahar
[Iran, 2001]
Director: Monsen Makhmalbaf
Starring: Nelofer Pazira, Hassan Taintai
A feature film in documentary style about a woman refugee from Afghanistan, now reporter in Canada. She has to return to Afghanistan, which is under the Taliban regime, to save her sister. She travels along the whole country.
The work of humanitarian agencies including UNHCR is shown in the film.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0283431/
Kannathil Muthamittal / (A Peck on the Cheek)
[India, 2002]
Language: Tamil
Director: Mani Ratnam
Starring: Kalyan Chakravarthy, Nandita Das, Keerthana, Madhavan, Prakashraj
A little girl's search for her biological mother who had abandoned her as a new born baby. Amudha, adopted by Thiru and Indira and growing up with the couple’s two sons, is blissfully unaware of her parentage, until the couple tell her on her ninth birthday that her mother is a Sri Lankan refugee. At first shocked into disbelief, Amudha is then determined to find her biological mother. The search takes the family to strife-torn Sri Lanka, where Amudha comes face-to-face with reality, and reconciles herself to it.
The characters are well etched, the tale is narrated with lot of feeling and maturity with remarkable attention to detail. The film shifts to Sri Lanka and civil war. Tankers and bombs, arson and havoc, talk of liberation, the family also get caught in a crossfire between the soldiers and the militants, and make a miraculous escape. Amudha's mother is part of the women's wing of the LTTE. Her character brings out well the dilemma of a woman militant who is persuaded to come face-to-face with her past, and revive the memories which she had buried deep down. Amudha's only wish is to see her mother and get a kiss from her.
This film was a huge crowd puller in South India and did fairly well in the rest of the country. It was also screened at the Toronto Film Festival in 2002.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312859/
The Killing Fields
[UK, 1984]
Director: Roland Joffe
Starring: Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor and John Malkovich
Language: English, Khmer
The true story of New York Times journalist Sidney Schanberg and Cambodian journalist and translator Dith Pran, who found themselves trapped in the Khmer Rouge revolution in Cambodia. Pran flees to a refugee camp in Thailand, where he is reunited with Schanberg.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087553/
The Kite Runner
[2007]
Director: Marc Forster
Language: English
Based on the international bestseller by Khaled Hosseini, THE KITE RUNNER is an epic set in 20th-century Afghanistan. In 1978, Amir and Hassan are young boys living in Kabul, where Hassan and his father work as servants for Amir and his father, Baba. Amir and Hassan make an excellent team in kite competitions, with Hassan having a gift for running down kites, but after one contest, he is bullied by Assef, who does unspeakable things to him as Amir watches from a distance and then runs away, not helping his friend. As the Russians and then the Taliban take over Afghanistan, Baba and Amir escape to America. But even as he graduates from college and meets a beautiful young woman,who is also from Kabul, Amir is haunted by his cowardice and can't turn down an opportunity to try to make things right when it is offered by his father's old friend Rahim Khan--even if it means risking his life.
[Description from http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/kite_runner/]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419887/
Last Minute (Deqîqeya Dawiyê)
[Germany, 2004]
Director: Marina Caba Rall
Starring: Petra Kleinert and Ecran Durmaz
In a broom cupboard at a German airport two cleaning ladies discover a stranger in handcuffs. He tells them about an unjustified deportation and about the torture which awaits him in his native country. Is he telling the truth? Or could he be a criminal, a terrorist who's trying to escape from the airport and his guards? The two women are confronted with either having to believe or disbelieve him. And if he is telling the truth, what should they do?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437294/
Last Resort
[UK, 2000]
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Starring: Dina Korzun, Artyom Strelnikov
Language: English, Russian
When a young Russian woman and her son leave Moscow to meet her fiancé, who fails to show up, she applies for asylum. Last Resort follows Tanya's negotiating the legal Catch-22 of the British immigration system. She feels and is trapped, with little money, desperate for a way out – sneaking out of the compound or getting money by participating in some sex displays for web cams.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0258761/
Los Niños de Rusia
[Spain, 2001]
Director: Jamie Camino
Starring: Araceli Sánchez, Alberto Fernández
The film tells the story of 3000 Spanish children, war orphans and children of Republican combatants of the Civil War who were evacuated in 1937 to the Soviet Union. Only after 1956 could they go back to Spain. The return to their homeland turned out to be a disillusion for many of them.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311585/
Loving Glances / (Sjaj u ocima)
[UK/Yugoslavia, 2003]
Director: Srdjan Karanovic
Starring: Senad Alihodzic, Jelena Djokic
Labud is an ethnic refugee in search of his old girlfriend when he meets and falls in love with Romana, even though the recent war had made their ethnic groups mortal enemies. Loving Glances explores the Yugoslav society after the collapse of the country.
http://www.reel.com/movie.asp?MID=139567
The March
[UK, 1990]
Director: David Wheatley
Starring: Malick Bowens and Juliet Stevenson
Out of a humanitarian disaster area in Africa, a charismatic leader heads an exodus of thousands of Africans to the Mediterranean, hoping to cross to the “Promised Land” of Europe. The European Commission, fearing violence and racial and nationalistic tensions, tries to find a solution before the migrants and refugees land in Southern Spain.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165382/
The Parrot / (De Papegaai)
[The Netherlands, 1988]
Director: Hans Hylkema
Starring: Karin van Dam, Peter Tuinman
Children’s film. After a military coup in the Netherlands, Johan van Dam is detained and tortured, but he manages to flee with his wife and children to Tyros where they get political asylum. Initally, the family faces a culture shock, but over the years the main problem is that Johan cannot find work.
http://www.omroep.nl/ikon/papegaai/reeks.htm
http://www.ikonrtv.nl/site/algInfo.asp?oId=423 (to view film on-line)
The Visitor
(USA, 2007)
Director: Thomas McCarthy
Starring: Richard Jenkins
Widowed economics professor Walter Vale returns to Manhattan to discover that asylum seekers Tarek and Zainab have taken up residence in his apartment, the apparent victims of a property renting scam. Taking pity on the young couple, Walter allows them to stay, forging a tender bond of friendship with the outsiders. When Tarek is sent to a detention camp and threatened with expulsion from the United States, Walter tries to seeks legal advice, joined by Tarek's mother Mouna, who fears for her son's safety if he is forced to return home.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0857191/
Refugee
[India, 2000]
Director: J.P. Dutta
Starring: Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor
Language: Hindi
A young man called “Refugee” guides refugees across the border between Indian and Pakistan. On one of these expeditions he meets Nazneen and falls in love with her, as he is assigned to take her and her family - Mohajirs from Bangladesh - to Pakistan. Refugee turns over a new leaf when he comes to know of the brutalities committed by a couple of terrorists brought in by him from Pakistan and joins the Border Secrity Force. Finally, love triumphs over all boundaries and limitations and Nazneen comes to live in India with Refugee. The message that humanity is above everything else in the world is put across effectively.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250690/
Roadblocks
[Greece, 2000]
Director: Stavros Loannou
Starring: Hussein Abdulah, Falaha Hassan
The film tells the story of the desperate attempts of Kurdish refugees to cross Europe in a documentary fashion. Huseyin from Iraqi Kurdistan crosses a river and minefield on his way across hostile Turkey to find his brother, Ahmet, who has vanished in Greece. Learning he left for Italy by an overcrowded rubber raft, Hussein calls his father and asks him to sell their house in the village to finance his search.
The film does not "feature" actors who portray the truth of others' lives but rather follows unknown faces in their real adventures.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0269448/
A Song for Beko
[Germany, 1992]
Director: Nizamettin Aric
Starring: Nizamettin Aric, Bezara Arsen
Beko begins his long pilgrimage in search of his brother in Turkish Kurdistan, where he escapes arrest. Fleeing into Syria, this modern-day Odysseus then makes his way into the serenely beautiful highlands of the Kurdish areas of Iraq. Here, in a nomadic community caring for refugee children, Beko finds himself and a homeland.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104621/
Starukhi (Old Little Ladies)
[Russia, 2003]
Director: Gennadiy Sidorov
A Tajik/Uzbek refugee family is settled in a deep Russian village but the villagers are initially against the newcomers...
http://www.cinemovies.fr/fiche_film.php?IDfilm=3270
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399437/
Terminal
[USA, 2004]
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Hanks, Catharina Zeta-Jones
An eastern immigrant becomes a refugee “sur place” as a result of a coup d’etat in his home country just at the moment he enters the USA on a tourist visa, he has to live in the transit zone of the airport JFK.
The story is based on the life of “Monsieur Alfred”, an Iranian-born refugee who has been living at Paris Airport for 16 years, despite UNHCR intervention.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362227/
Turtles can fly / (Lakposhtha hâm parvaz mikonand)
[Iran/Iraq/France, 2004]
Director: Bahman Gobadi
Language: Kurdish
Set in Ghobadi's native Kurdistan, close to the Turkey-Iran border. Soran is a 13-year-old boy who orders other children around as he installs an antenna for villagers keen to hear of Saddam's fall. Eventually, he falls for Agrin but is disturbed by her brother Henkov, who was left armless after he stepped on a landmine and who can now seemingly predict the future.
1st prize at the 2004 San Sebastian film festival, Audience Awards at the 2005 Film Festivals of Rotterdam and Copenhagen.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424227/
Voyage of the Damned
[UK, 1974]
Director: Stuart Rosenberg
Starring: Faye Dunaway and Oskar Werner
937 Jewish Germans are offered safe haven in Havana, Cuba, in 1939. They depart Hamburg in high spirits, looking forward to their new life. However, the whole voyage is actually a Nazi propaganda scheme and the passengers are never really intended to be allowed ashore once they reach their destination. After weeks of unsuccessful pleas they are forced to return back to Europe.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075406/
Voyage to Cythera / (Taxidi sta Kithara)
[Greece, 1984]
Director: Theo Angelopoulos
Starring: Manos Katrakis, Mary Chronopoulou
A film about political refugees in the realm of the imaginary.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088241/
1922
[Greece, 1982]
Director: Nikos Koundouros
Starring: Antigone Amanitou, Nikos Kappios
In 1922, up to half a million Greeks were forced to cross from Turkish Asia Minor over the nearest Aegean islands or mainland ports in a desperate bid for life.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079643/
House of Sand and Fog
[USA, 2003]
Director: Vadim Perelman
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Jennifer Connelly
A refugee from Iran living in the USA has spent all his savings on a house, unwillingly putting himself and his family in the middle of a legal tussle with the house's former owner. The legal struggle turns into a personal confrontation, with tragic results.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0315983/
A Maid of Belgium
[USA, 1917]
Director: George Archainbaud
Starring: Louise de Rigney
Crazed by the horrors in World War I Belgium, amnesia-stricken girl Adoree is taken to the USA by the Hudsons, a wealthy American couple. Soon after, Roger Hudson is called away to business in South America, and when his wife Claire discovers that Adoree is pregnant, she convinces the girl to allow the Hudsons to claim the child theirs. When the child is born, Adoree steals the infant and disappears. Finding the girl’s coat near a lake, Hudson assumes that she has drowned and dynamites the lake in order to locate her body. The explosions restore Adoree’s memory, and she recalls her marriage to the Vicomte Jean de Michelet, who happens to be in town raising money for Belgian relief. The Vicomte is brought to his wife and the family is happily reunited.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0008249/
One, Two, Three
[USA, 1961]
Director: Billy Wilder
Starring: James Cagney, Horst Buchholz
This film can be seen as a satire on East-West defections and integration, as Cagney has just 24 hours to free a young communist hoodlum from the East German Stasi and turn him into a West German capitalist aristocrat fit to marry the daughter of the director of Coca Cola.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055256/
The Sound of Music
[USA, 1965]
Director: Robert Wise
Starring: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer
Musical on the story of Maria, a nun who becomes part of an Austrian family household, the Trapps. They flee after continuous Nazi pressure to safety in Switzerland at the start of World War II.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059742/
Tears of the Sun
[USA, 2003]
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Bruce Willis, Monica Bellucci
Lt. A.K. Waters (Bruce Willis), a Special-Ops commander leads his team into the jungle of Nigeria to rescue a relief worker, played by Monica Belluci, who agrees to go with them only if they consent to take along an additional 70 refugees.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0314353/
Three Faces West / (a.k.a: The Refugee)
[USA, 1940]
Director: Bernard Vorhaus
Starring: John Wayne, Sigrid Gurie
Viennese surgeon Dr. Braun and his daughter Leni come to a small town in North Dakota as refugees from the Hitler regime. When the winds of the Dust Bowl threaten the town, John Phillips leads the townsfolk in moving to greener pastures in Oregon. He falls for Leni, but she is betrothed to the man who helped her and her father escape from the Third Reich.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033159/
Three Kings
[USA, 1999]
Director: David O. Russell
Starring: George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg
In the aftermath of the Gulf War, four soldiers set out to steal gold that was stolen from Kuwait, but they discover refugees who need their help.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120188/
Bella and Real
[Sweden, 2002]
Director: Börje Peratt
A Swedish coach recuits an immigrant soccer team, but all the fathers of the players demand that their sons play centre-field. Portrait of one of the fathers, a Kurdish family patriarch whose daughter Bella has an impossible dream: becoming the goalkeeper.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1002673/
Bread and Roses
[UK/USA, 2000]
Director: Ken Loach
Starring: Pilar Padilla, Adrien Brody
Maya, a quick-witted young woman, crosses the border from Mexico to the USA without papers. Through her sister Rosa in LA, she gets a job as a janitor. Maya and the other workers start a protest campaign against the appalling work conditions but are intimidated by management.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212826/
Code 46
[UK, 2003]
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Tim Robbins, Togo Igawa
A love story set in a Brave New World-type near-future where cities are heavily controlled and only accessible through checkpoints. People cannot travel unless they have "papelles," a special travel permit issued by the totalitarian government.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0345061/
Dirty Pretty Things
[UK, 2002]
Director: Stephen Frears
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Chiwetel Fjiofor, Kriss Dosanjh
An illegal Nigerian immigrant working at a London hotel makes a shocking discovery and enlists the help of a Turkish chambermaid to investigate what looks like a murder.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0301199/
Distant Lights (Lichter)
[Germany, 2003]
Director: Hans-Christian Schmid
Starring: Andrzej Górak, Anna Yanovskaya
A Ukrainian family tries to reach Germany from Poland. Together with some compatriots, they are left behind in a forest by smugglers who tell them that the lights that they see further away are Berlin, but it turns out that they only reached the Polish town of Slubice. Now they must cross the treacherous Oder river without being caught by the well-equipped border guards…
This movie reflects on the situation around the border between Poland and Germany. The fate of many single characters creates a picture of life in this region: Some Russians want to cross the border illegal to get into Germany, a company wants to build a new factory, a Polish taxi driver desperately needs money to buy his daughter a communion dress, and so on.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0351238/
L’étranger venu d’Afrique
(short film – 20 minutes)
[Switzerland, 1998]
Director : Joseph Kumbela
Starring : Lin Véronica Cha-Chi, Baudoin Euloge Adogony
Young African student Lulu lives in Peking with his Chinese girl friend, but doesn’t feel accepted by the local community.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0176354/
Follow the Feather / (Perre Dima So)
[Germany, 2004]
Director: Nuray Sahin
Starring: Pegah Ferydoni, Neza Selbuz
Young Helin is brought up by her father in Turkey. The night before he dies her father gives Helin a white feather to guide her and asks her to search for her mother and sister who went to Germany a long time ago. With the white feather she starts her journey to Germany and finds her mother and her sister in Berlin. Seeing each other again means that the past can be cleared and the search for a common future can begin.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0442670/
From the Edge of the City / (Apo tin Akri tis Polis)
[Greece, 1998]
Director: Constantinos Giannaris
Starring: Simela Chartomatsidi, Emilios Chilakis
Film on a group of young “Pontioi” (Greek Russians) now living in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Athens. Their lives, values and blood ties that bind them starts to crumble as they collide with the ruthless world which they so eagerly strive to conquer from the edge of the city.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181547/
Green Card
[USA, 1990]
Director: Peter Weir
Starring: Gérard Depardieu, Andie MacDowell
With the help of his lawyer, Georges from Paris attempts to begin a new in America by illegally marrying Bronte, who has agreed to the scheme for her own self-serving reasons. Bronte is exasperated when the Immigration & Naturalization Service investigates their case, and she and Georges, whom she detests, must spend time together studying each other's lives to avoid disaster...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099699/
Handful of Gras / (Ein Handvoll Grass)
[Germany, 2000]
Director: Roland Suso Richter
Starring: Oliver Korittke, Arman Kuru
Ten-year-old Kendal lives in a poor Kurdish village. His uncle who is involved in drugs trafficking in Hamburg, takes Kendal to Germany. After his uncle is arrested, the boy is looked after by a German taxi driver, but eventually ends up in a children’s home. His uncle tracks him down, and Kendal soon begins work as a drug pusher.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206795/
Hop
[Belgium, 2002]
Director: Dominique Standaert
Language: French, Dutch
Starring: Kalomba Mboyi, Jan Decleir, Antje De Boeck
Justin, a young Burundese illegal lives with his father Dieudonné in Brussels. After an argument with a neighbor gets out of hand, Dieudonné is arrested and risks expulsion to the Democratic Republic of Congo (not Burundi!). Justin gets help and shelter from a veteran anarchist who threatens to blow up the Atomium if Dieudonné is not released…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298911/
http://www.facecouncil.org/tournees/fichesfilms/hop.html
House of Hearts
[Germany, 2002]
Director: Elizabeth Rygaard
Starring: Bora Akkas and Mazlum Cimen
A drama of separation seen through the eyes of a seven-year-old boy, Osman, whose parents leave Turkey to work in Europe. The drama is enveloped in the expressive Anatolian music, the overwhelming forces of nature and traditional poetry. Together they form some of the riches Osman carries in the suitcase that accompanies him to his new life.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330719/
Inch’Allah Dimanche
[France/Algeria, 2001]
Director: Yamina Benguigui
Starring: Fejria Deliba and Rabia Mokeddem
A passionate immigrant story of a woman struggling against old traditions. Zouina leaves her homeland with her three children to join her husband in France, where he's been living for the past ten years. In a land and culture foreign to her, she struggles against her mother-in-law's tyrannical hand and her husband's distrustful bitterness in an attempt to adjust to her life in exile.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0296008/
Journey by Night / (Rewitiya bi Seve)
[Austria, 2002]
Director: Kenan Kilic
Starring: Mehmet Tanik and Hakki Kilic
A bar in Vienna whose foreign-born regulars live on the edge of society. The majority are not Austrian citizens, are unemployed and have no financial resources. Their lives hover between legality and illegality, between surviving and wasting away. For a small group of native Turks, this existence represents a transitory phase which will eventually lead to a better life. One of them, Cemo, is unable to carry on in the face of this contradiction between hope and reality.
http://www.riocinema.ndirect.co.uk/kff03/features.htm
Journey to the Sun
[Turkey/Germany/the Netherlands, 1999]
Director: Yesim Ustaoglu
On the life of Kurds in Turkey. Mehmet from Western Turkey and Berzan from Kurdistan meet at the border of Iraq and befriend one another. Mehmet gets arrested during a routine control of the police because of his Kurdish identity. When he is released from the detention centre after a week, he returns to the pension where he was staying and discovers that they do not want him to stay there anymore. He loses his job as well and decides to go back to his birth town
with Berzan.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0188653/
www.bevrijdingsfilms.be/g-l/journey_to_the_sun.htm
A Little bit of Freedom (Hinek Azadî)
[Germany, 2002]
Director: Yüksel Yavuz
Starring: Cagdas Bozkurt, Leroy Delmar
Set in Hamburg's immigrant district of Altona, the film tells the story of friendship between two young men. Baran is a Kurd whose relatives have helped him to come to Germany after the death of his parents. He survives by running errands for a Turkish fast-food restaurant, which take him from the finest apartments to the lowest clip joints, but his application for asylum is rejected just before his sixteenth birthday. When Baran meets Chernor, an illegal and stateless immigrant, his life gains impetus. But while Chernor tries to finance his future by drug dealing, Baran's past catches up with him.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0946918/
A la Place du Coeur
[France, 1998]
Director: Robert Guédiguian
Starring: Christine Brücher, Ariane Ascaride
A film that depicts the pressures on young immigrant people: not only racism, but also aimlessness, lack of self-esteem and hard drugs.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126734/
Poniente
[Spain, 2002]
Director: Chus Gutiérrez
Starring: Cuca Escribano, José Coronado
A young teacher who lives in Madrid returns to her homeland, an island habituated by a multi-ethnic world, product of successive migrations. Some have just arrived, others arrived already years before and some of them, who returned to their roots, seem to have lost the memory of their time in exile.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332322/
La Promesse
[Belgium, 1996]
Director: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Starring: Jérémie Régnier, Olivier Gourmet
Igor’s father Roger smuggles illegal immigrants into Belgium for exorbitant fees, sets them up in slum-like apartments, and lets them work with forged papers in his construction site where they work hard for a pittance. When one of the illegals has a deadly accident, young Igor promises him that he will take care of his wife and child.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117398/
Today-Tomorrow / (Îro-sibe)
[Russia, 2002]
Director: Sarbast Rasol
Starring: Vladimir Maisuradze, Inna Karolyova
The story of a young Kurdish family's desperate attempt to travel to Europe through Russia and the strain it brings on the couple's relationship. The family waits in Russia for a forged passport in order to travel to Europe, but they live in uncertainty as they do not know if the smugglers will keep to their word.
http://www.riocinema.ndirect.co.uk/kff03/features.htm
Winterflower
[Germany, 1996]
Director: Kadir Sözen
Starring: Menderes Samanollar, Meral Yüzgülec
Mehmut Umut, a Turkish immigrant whose residence permit has expired, is woken early one morning by the police and led away. He is deported from Germany the same day and sent back to Turkey. His wife and little son are left behind. Mehmet survives in Istanbul with temporary jobs as a warehouseman and waiter. He applies for an entry visa but the application is rejected. He decides to trespass the law and embarks on a dangerous journey.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118175/
Whirlpool / (Gejaw)
[Kurdistan]
Director: Hawrey Mustafa
Starring: Shwan Atof, Tavga Mahamed
Based on a true event that took place in February 1997 as retold by one of the survivors. The perilous journey of Kurdish emigrants on a ship going to Europe.
http://www.riocinema.ndirect.co.uk/kff03/features.htm
Atoll K (a.k.a : Utopia)
[UK/France, 1952]
Directed by: Leo Joannon
Starring: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
Laurel & Hardy’s last movie is a chaotic European production, undermined a.o. by Laurel's ill health. Stan and Ollie take a ship to a South Sea island and are joined by two stateless men who join them as part of their crew.
“The principle behind the film was potentially promising. In a post-WW2 world, contemplating the smoking ruins caused by fanatical nationalism, intolerance and militarist frenzy, it was no bad idea to present the story of a group of stateless people, who sail off to a desert island where they proclaim themselves free of all laws, passports and taxes, only to find that commercial interests bring the full fury of the world's states down on them. By far the most painful L&H film."
(Simon Louvish, Stan and Ollie. The roots of comedy. Faber & Faber, London 2002)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042210
Beyond Rangoon
[USA, 1995]
Director: John Boorman
Starring: Patricia Arquette, U Aung Ko
Two sisters are in Burma in the late 1980s when the military crack down against opposition demonstrations. One sister can leave, but the other is stuck because she lost her passport.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112495/
Blackboards (Takhté siah)
[Iran, 2000]
Director: Samira Makhmalbaf
Starring: Said Mohamadi, Behnaz Jafari
Pupils and teachers crisscross the dangerous border area between Iran and Iraq with blackboards on their backs, in a region where surviving is more important than education.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246266/
Osama
[Afghanistan, 2003]
Director: Siddiq Barmak
Starring: Marina Golbahari, Arif Herati
The film is set in Afghanistan under the Taliban rule. A 12-year-old Afghan girl and her mother lose their jobs when the Taliban closes the hospital where they work. The Taliban have also forbidden women to leave their houses without a male "legal companion". With her husband and brother dead, killed in battle, there is no one left to support the family. Without being able to leave the house, the mother is left with nowhere to turn. Feeling that she has no other choice, she disguises her daughter as a boy. Now called 'Osama,' the girl embarks on a terrifying and confusing journey as she tries to keep the Taliban from finding out her true identity.
Inspired by a true story, “Osama” is the first entirely Afghan film shot since the fall of the Taliban.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368913
Roadblocks / (Kleistoi dromoi)
[Greece, 2000]
Director: Stavos Luannou
Starring: Hussein Abdullah, Falaha Hassan
Portrays the Kurdish struggle to receive credit in our world.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0269448/
Homecoming Song / (To Tragoudi tis Epistrofis)
[Greece, 1983]
Director: Ianis Smaragdis
The film deals with the desperate search for identity.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289571/
No Man’s Land
[UK/Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2001]
Director: Denis Tanavic
Starring: Branko Djuric, Rene Bitorajac
Bosnia and Herzegovina during 1993 at the time of the heaviest fighting between the two warring sides. A Serb and a Muslim find themselves stuck in a trench in no man's land. No-one, including the UN blue helmets, can find a solution.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283509/
Welcome to Sarajevo
[UK, 1997]
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Stephen Dillane, Woody Harrelson
Journalist teams meet the beginning of Bosnian war in Sarajevo. During their reports they find an orphanage near the front line. The journalists try to take the orphans to England illegally.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120490/
Harrison's Flowers
[France, 2000]
Director: Elie Chouraqui
Starring: Andie McDowell
Language: English
When an American photojournalist disappears in war-torn Yugoslavia during the height of the fighting, his wife travels to the Balkans in an effort to find him.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216799/
Before the Rain/ (Pred dozhdot)
[UK/Macedonia1994]
Director: Milcho Manchevski
Starring: Katrin Cartledge, Rade Serbedzija
Ethnic strife in Macedonia in the early 1990s threatens to start a civil war, and brings together a silent young monk, a London picture editor, and a disillusioned war photographer in a tragic tale of fated lovers. "Before the Rain" explores the uncompromising nature of war as it ravages the lives of unsuspecting, and forces the innocent to take sides.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110882/
Carla’s Song
[UK, 1996]
Director: Ken Loach
Starring: Robert Carlyle and Oyanka Cabezas
George, a Glasgow bus driver, falls in love with Carla, a young Nicaraguan dancer. He travels with Carla to her homeland, and there learns more than he can deal with about the truth of war.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115832/
Death & the Maiden
[UK, 1994]
Director: Roman Polanski
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley
Former political dissident Gerardo Escobar returns home from a visit with the country's new president, who's just named him head of a human rights commission. He is charged with investigating the death squads that kept the old regime in power. But his wife Paulina is convinced that the commission is a whitewash.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109579/
Marasmo
[Costa Rico, 2003]
Director: Mauricio Mendiola Vélez
Starring: Bernal Garcia, César Melendez
The actual situation of Colombia is the backcloth of some parallel stories of love, hate and revenge. A young Colombian woman gets to know a police sergeant, who is at the same time a paramilitary and who has been hired by a drug smuggler to take revenge for the death of his pregnant wife. Everything is ruined when the bus where the two were traveling in was held up by guerilla and the policeman is discovered by a bloodthirsty guerilla.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390215/
Missing
[USA, 1982]
Director: Costa Gavras
Starring: Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek
Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman, an American conservative who comes to a South American country to search for his missing son, a journalist.
Innocent voices (Voces inocentes)
[Mexico/USA, 2005, in Spanish]
Director: Luis Mandoki
Starring: Carlos Padilla, Leonor Varela, Xuna Primus
Set in war-torn El Salvador in the mid-1980s, an eleven-year-old boy must decide between joining the army and fighting alongside the guerrillas. Director Mandoki is careful to leaven the tragedy with light and even humorous moments. Ultimately "Innocent Voices" is mostly about survival. The film shows the effects of war on children.
www.innocentvoicesmovie.com
American History X
[USA, 1998]
Director: Tony Kaye
Starring: Edward Norton, Edward Furlong
A former neo-Nazi skinhead tries to prevent his younger brother from going down the same wrong path that he did.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120586/
Just a Little Red Dot
[Canada, 1997]
Director: Mitra Sen
Based on a true incident of discrimination, the film encourages young people to challenge racism and celebrate diversity.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0447224/
Remember the Titans
[USA, 2000]
Director: Boaz Yakin
Starring: Denzel Washington, Will Patton
The true story of a newly appointed African-American coach and his high school team on their first season as a racially integrated unit.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210945/
Romper Stomper
[Australia, 1992]
Director: Geoffrey Wright
Starring: Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock
Nazi skinheads in Melbourne take out their anger on local Vietnamese, who are seen as threatening racial purity.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105275/
Spring för livet / (Run for your life)
[Sweden, 1997]
Director: Richard Hobert
Starring: Camilla Lundén, Göran Strangertz
“Run for Your Life” a dark and hard-hitting look at racism and hostility against foreigners in contemporary Sweden.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120189/
Cheese and Jam (Kajmak and Marmaleda)
[Slovenia, 2003]
Director: Branko Djuric
Starring: Rene Bitorajac, Dragan Bjelogrlic
A story of a man drawn into the world of refugee smuggling and other nefarious activities in order to keep his wife happy and food on the table.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0333701/
Les Clandestins / (Stowaways)
[Switzerland, 1997]
Directors: Denis Chouinard, Nicolas Wadimoff
Starring: Ovidiu Balan, Anton Kouznetsov
Six stowaways pay to be hidden in a container on a cargo ship heading for Montreal. They each arrived at a port in France with their own story of despair, willing to risk their lives for a new future and a new identity.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123013/
Deadly Voyage
[USA, 2000]
Director: John Mackenzie
Starring: Omar Epps, Joss Ackland
Based on a real-life incident, in which several African stowaways on a cargo ship to France (and ultimately, they hope, to the U.S.) are caught by the crew and brutally murdered. The lone survivor sees to it that justice is eventually served.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0116056/
The Dupes / (Al-Makhdu’un)
[Syria, 1972]
Director: Tawfiq
Starring: Bassan Lofti Abou-Ghazala, Abderrahman Alrahy
Film based on one of the most famous Arabic novellas - Ghassan Kanafani’s Men in the Sun (Rijal fi-Shams) 1962, about three Palestinian men who try to find a way to get smuggled in to Kuwait to find work. This film was one of the first to address the Palestinian issue.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068899/
Dying to Leave
[Australia, 2003]
Director: Chris Hilton
Starring: Rachael Blake
About human trafficking and globalization and the voluntary passage of those in search of better economic and social conditions.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384930/
Lilja 4-ever
[Sweden, 2002]
Director: Lukas Moodysson
Starring: Oksana Akinshina and Artyom Bogucharsky
A young Russian girl is lured to the West where she is forced into prostitution.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0300140/
Spare Parts / (Rezervni deli)
[Slovenia, 2003]
Director: Damjan Kozole
Starring: Peter Musevski, Aljosa Kovacic
The movie is about smuggling of illegal migrants (although they speak about them with a term 'refugees'). On one hand it tries to bring out the vulnerability and hardship that illegal migrants find themselves in during their travel by means of smuggling networks, and on the other hand the coldness and cruelty of smugglers.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0334237/
