Press Invitation 8th refugee film festival
Press Invitation 8th refugee film festival
The plight of refugees won’t have escaped your attention with between thousands of Rohingyas Muslims currently adrift at sea in South East Asia, hundreds dead after trying to cross the Mediterranean earlier this month and many in need of help after the earthquake in Nepal.
But the number of displaced people is a growing issue everywhere around the world. Conflict, persecution and natural disaster have created a new nation of displaced people - the 26th-largest nation in the world. It was a nation of 51m at the end of 2013 - the highest number since the end of World War II - and half of its population was children.
Georgia and Sophia Scott, the directors of the film “In the Shadow of War”, which will be screened June 21 at 2pm and June 25 at 9:50pm, will be available for interview through Skype or email.
Sophia Scott has worked as a producer for organizations including the BBC and Channel 4. She has also worked extensively as a self-shooting director across Africa on projects for the UN, PBS, CBC, The New York Times and Human Rights Watch amongst others.
Her sister Georgia’s latest documentary film, set in Kenya, explored the threats facing a unique Swahili community on Lamu Island on the border of Somalia. Along with Sophia, Georgia runs GroundTruth Productions which produces films across Africa, Europe and the Balkans.
If you would like to interview them, other director or write about the film festival, please get in touch with Rosina Shing by email: [email protected].
Included below details of the film festival as well as some useful statistics should you want to write a broader piece about refugees.
For further information, please contact Rosina Shing at 2206 0202.
Many thanks and look forward to hearing from you soon.
UNHCR in numbers
- More than 1,300 Rohingyas and Bangladeshis have arrived in Indonesia's Aceh and North Sumatra provinces in the last week.
- In Nepal, about 2.8m men, women and children are living out in the open and need emergency assistance in Nepal. More than 3 m houses have been destroyed or badly damaged.
- In 2013 - 32,200 people each day were forced to flee their homes.
- Fewer than 100,000 refugees were resettled in the same year.
- The Syria crisis is currently the largest refugee crisis from a single country - over 3 million Syrians requested refugee status in 2014, double the year before.
- More than 3,500 people were reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean Sea in 2014.
- In 2014, 22,277 asylum applications in industrialized countries came from China.
- The latest statistics are available here
| UNHCR Hong Kong 8th Refugee Film Festival at Broadway Cinematheque |
| The Good Lie (Drama) June 19, 9:50pm; June 25, 7:40pm Four young Sudanese refugees arrive in Kansas City, Missouri, after they win a lottery for relocation to the United States. An encounter with a brash employment agency counsellor (played by Reese Witherspoon) changes their lives. Based on real life story of “The Lost Boys of Sudan”, directed by Philippe Falardeau, starring Reese Witherspoon. |
| Life is Waiting June 19, 7:40pm; June 22, 7:10pm A new youth movement is rising to demand the long-promised referendum on freedom in Western Sahara where the end of European rule gave way to a new occupation by Morocco. The Sahrawi people face arrests, torture and disappearance for demanding independence and now young people are deploying nonviolence resistance to challenge these human rights abuses and fight for self-determination. Documentary, directed by Iara Lee |
| The Longest Kiss June 23, 8:05pm; June 24, 7:50pm The meeting of the Blue and White Nile in Sudan’s capital Khartoum is called the longest kiss in history. Six Sudanese youth of Muslim and Christian origin travel up and down the White Nile between North and South Sudan before the country’s secession. They are looking for a place to call home and trying to find their identities as their world changes around them. Documentary, directed by Alexandra Sicotte-Lévesque |
| The Refugees of Shangri-La June 20, 8:30pm; June 22, 8:30pm Bhutan’s lofty Gross National Happiness index hides thousands of refugees who have been pushed out of their country as their peaceful kingdom has turned against them. A group of exiles abandons hope of returning to paradise and chooses to leave the Himalayas for the American dream. Documentary, directed by Doria Bramante |
| Mary Meets Mohammad June 21, 3:40pm, June 23, 8:05pmTasmania opens its first detention center and Mary, a local Christian pensioner, is deeply unhappy about the 400 male asylum seekers from Afghanistan that turn up. But Mary develops an unlikely friendship with Mohammad, a Muslim asylum seeker in the center, after her knitting club donates some beanie hats. Documentary, directed by Heather Kirkpatrick |
| In the Shadow of War June 21, 2pm; June 25, 9:50pmWhat can be done to break the cycle of destruction that continues to affect young people after a war? Four teenagers born at the end of the war in Bosnia have grown up in orphanages or with parents suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. When they turn 18, they have to come to terms with how they were conceived, rebuild their broken relationships and try to heal the scars. Documentary, directed by Sophia Scott |
___________________________________________________________________________
For more unique and extraordinary tales of survival from our UNHCR teams on the ground, take a look here http://www.unhcr.org/.
