The documentary 4.1 miles It opens for a bright sunny day on the Aegean Sea. It is October 28, 2015, and for one moment, the preparation is beautiful: the blue sky, blue water, the horizon tends to the outside. Then you hear the screaming. The glove hand continues from the frame, and the clouds of a small boy returned to safety on the boat of the coast guard. Then the captain revolves with a child in his arms. “Put the camera down,” he says to the person behind the lens. “Take this.”
Little more than four miles from Türkiye, the Greek island of Lesbos was on the front lines of the global refugee crisis. Since January 2014, More than 1.5 million people They crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, where many Syrian civil war, the rise of ISIS, the repressive regimes and poverty in sub -Saharan Africa fled. More than 12,000 died or lost along the way, but many of those who survived the short trip but the treacherous landed on Lesbos, who received More than 500,000 immigrants In 2015 alone.
Dafni Matzaracky movie, which was nominated for an Academy Award for 20 minutes 4.1 miles The Greek Coast Guard follows Kiriacos Papadubulus, where he and a small crew head over the sea over and over again to break up men, women and desperate children from swelling. Before thousands of Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis began in boats in the hope of finding a shelter in Europe, Pabadubulus spent his days in routine patrols. But the film finds the captain paying the role of a professional rescue without any additional training or equipment – an average citizen trying to deal with a humanitarian catastrophe.
Among the ten films nominated for the 2017 Academy Awards in Documentary Categories, it deals four with the Syrian crisis or the refugee crisis. along with 4.1 milesNETFLIX White helmets and Jokes: My homeland Promoting the documentary Oscar is short in shape, while the Italian movie Fire It was nominated for the best documentary. The strength of these projects lies in emotional images, often stark, drawing from their characters. If the masses can imagine themselves in Syrian rescue workers shoes, or the captain of the Greek coast goalkeeper, a drowning doctor, or a migratory mother, these films may do more than enlightenment or reporting. All creators told me that they hope that other documentaries that mobilized the affected viewers and legislators can make their films make more distant problems immediately.
Film nominations were announced just four days after President Donald Trump was opened and three days before the issuance of an executive order to suspend admission to refugees from Syria indefinitely and from all other countries for 120 days. It also temporarily stopped the expatriates from seven American countries ’countries and reduced the total number of refugees who will be accepted in the United States in 2017 by more than half to 50,000. While the travel ban has been suspended since then by the federal courts, Trump’s executive matter has led to protests at airports throughout the country and pushed people and issues filmed in these documentaries to the national spotlight.
“When I made the movie [in 2015]”I thought that was at the right time because it was when the refugee crisis was in the news.” White helmets Producer Joanna Natasagara told me that it is logical in this case: “The narration of stories is always involved in the most urgent issues at any specific time, and perhaps more than the narration more. [film]She said that these issues today are the crisis of refugees and the war in Syria.
As a means, documentaries provide intimate relationship and concentration often missing in daily news. Since the Syrian conflict began in 2011, the escalating violence and floods resulting from immigrants have been covered by the international press, but in the face of continuous coverage, it has been difficult for many readers to maintain the same level of daily attention. Often it takes a particularly terrifying picture-a small child washed on the beach, a 5-year-old child covered with blood and dust-to restore attention.
Matzaracki, who grew up in Greece but is now based in the San Francisco Bay area, said she felt separated from the disaster that plays in her homeland. When I got to Lesbos, I found that the situation was worse than she was imagining. “I really wanted to make a movie that would [bridge] This gap between our comfort zone and the reality of the world. “
the White helmets Director Orlando von Einsidel also admitted a feeling of tragedy. The film, made by Natasigra, tells the story of the Syrian Civil Defense, a group of volunteer rescue workers in the country who respond to attacks on civilians. When filmmakers watched a video on YouTube about white helmets, they pulled newborns from a bombing building, they got to know a missing story from the prevailing acting of Syria. “There is a confusing and unbalanced picture of what remains behind the Syrian civilians on the ground, and an emptiness of any narration about helping the Syrians themselves or activity in saving them,” Natasigra told me. “The idea of the Syrian hero was completely absent from the media scene.” The white helmets were the “ideal story” of that gap: they were bakers, builders, tailors and former students who gathered together to save their Syrian colleagues.
Other Special Syria movie, Jokes: My homeland The family of the rebel commander in Aleppo is kidnapped by ISIS. His wife, Hala, and their four children, make a tragic decision to flee the country and start a new life in Germany. Director Marcel Metlisan, an old warrior photographer who covered the Arab Spring, said that documentaries offer an emotional way in a story that can feel abstract. He told me: “The importance of documentary filmmakers is to give the human character to the conflict.”
In the Features Class, Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire It focuses on Lampedusa, an Italian island where hundreds of thousands of African refugees have fallen since the 1990s. The director moved to Lambidosa for a year and a half to understand each of the rhythms of daily life and migrants the horrific journey to get there. “The movie is a helpful cry of consciousness,” Rosie told me, “” The movie is a helpful cry of awareness, “he told me. “When I asked them,” Why do you go across the sea if you might die? They said: “It is the word” May “that makes us pass through the sea.
While documentaries may once be considered an old educational fee, their reputation as an exciting artistic form and prestige It has undoubtedly grown in recent years. Because of the new distribution options and social media, documentaries now have the ability to reach a more world audience. By licensing White helmets To the video broadcast giant Netflix, Von Einsiedel and NataseGara gave their movie in 190 countries (his colleague in the documentary OSCAR 13 It is also on Netflix. Matziaraki 4.1 miles –She produced while she was a graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley-Display on New York TimesThe web site, free for anyone who has an internet connection. Fire It was released in 64 countries, including Japan, as it opened earlier this month. according to ReutersThe country accepted only 28 refugees in 2016, however, 10 pm was sold in Tokyo on the opening night.
Documentary films often have clear and measurable consequences – whether they are pushing politicians to work or investing the general public in a issue that affects them. A 2015 study I found it Gas countryThe 2010 documentary on the risk of cracking led to a further discussion about social media and increased coverage of large media, after its release and subsequent nomination for the Academy Award in 2011. Invisible warWhich was achieved in the sexual assault in the army, and the documentary 2013 Black fishWhich explored the OCA whale treatment in Seaword. Of course, some films were criticized because of the misleading of the fans by deleting uncomfortable details or twisted statistics to provide a more persuasive argument or an interesting story (as it was Accuse In the documentary 2010 Waiting for “Superman“Which depicted the rented schools as a prescription for the sick public education system.”
Although it is too early to know whether this year’s documentary films nominated for this year have a broader impact on people’s understanding of the migrant crisis or the Syrian conflict, some film makers have already seized them on a smaller scale. Matziaraki said she received messages from viewers asking how they could help or donate, including those who traveled to Lesbos to volunteer after seeing 4.1 miles. “People who write to me and say,” Thank you for changing my mind. Thank you for making me realize what is happening. “This is really perhaps the most important thing.”
in Fire Director Rosie’s experience, the emotional relationship sponsored by these documentaries inevitably leads to a question: “What can I do?” On the phone from New York, one of the topics of Rosie, Petro Bartolo, presented one answer. As a doctor in Lambidosa, Partoolo is often the first person to have a real human contact with the refugees who arrive; It is also the man who dissects the bodies to those who do not make them alive. He told me it is simply important to show immigrants that they are welcome. People say, “Can I come to Lambidosa for help? “We don’t need help.” On Lampedusa, we are the door. We leave it open, this is not enough. [When the refugees] Arriving in Europe needs to feel at home. ”