Documentaries explore reality of migration

AfriDocs is Africa’s only free streaming platform for documentary films. The 2019 edition of Migration Stories is sees six powerful and moving documentaries about the various realities of migration from an African perspective.

This diversity of films from Kenya, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Burundi, as well as from Europe, bring in to stark focus the hardships that drive many Africans to leave their homelands, as well as the stark realities awaiting those who do.

The films are being screened as a way to increase awareness around migration in the communities that are most affected.

The films are available to stream on Africa’s only FREE streaming platforms for documentary films, AfriDocs Anytime, www.afridocs.net that will stream all six of the documentaries anytime for anyone viewing from Africa.

Free to Air TV screenings will also take place in the Horn of Africa and in Nigeria and Ghana during December and January.

The following films are available to stream now on #AfriDocsAnytime:

Cinema Dadaab | Kati Juurus | Kenya | 2018
Dadaab is a dreamlike place forgotten by the rest of the world: a huge refugee camp on Kenya’s border to Somalia. The refugees cannot leave, but they let their minds escape by going to the cinema to watch films and to dream of other countries

Special Flight | Fernand Melgar | France | 2011
Special Flight is a dramatic account of the plight of undocumented foreigners at the Frambois detention center in Geneva, Switzerland, and of the wardens who struggle to reconcile humane values with the harsh realities of a strict deportation system.

Espoir Voyage | Michel Zongo | Burkina Faso | 2011
In Espoir Voyage, Burkinabe director Michel Zongo sets off on a personal journey in search of traces of his older brother Joanny. Like many others, Joanny left his village at the age of 14 to go and earn money for his family working on plantations in the Ivory Coast. Nobody had heard from him since he left.

Chez Jolie Coiffure | Rosina Mbakam | Belgium | 2018
Sabine works in Matonge (Brussels) as hairdresser in a salon. While she is working, she is at the same time waiting for a regulation of her case. In that place where she used to work, with other girls, they live under threat of national police who chase them.

Uncertain Future | Eddy Munyaneza | Burundi | 2018
Burundi, April 2015. Demonstrations against Pierre Nkurunziza’s third term bring thousands of people to the streets of Bujumbura. A failed coup d’état further plunges the country into repression and violence. Whole families are fleeing the country. Eddy, director, films the demonstrations, then the first executions and the victims. His artistic and social commitment dislocates his family, who decides to leave without him. Faced with the violence that is gaining ground, he is eventually also forced to flee his country. As a refugee in Senegal, far from his family, he begins an internal journey caught in the images and memories of the crisis that shakes Burundi.

No Way Back | Louise Hunt | The Gambia | 2019
No Way Back' explores the realities of life in Italy for two asylum seekers from Gambia, both called Lamin, who risked their lives to reach Europe in the hope of getting an education and jobs. But since the Italian government changed its immigration laws in November 2018, they are at risk of joining the thousands of undocumented migrants who are forced onto the streets or seek shelter in squalid camps and squats, such as 'The Ghetto', a derelict factory in Rome.

A Walk on the Tightrope | Sandra Budesheim, Sabine Zimmer | Germany 2017
In the asylum procedure in Germany, applicants and case officers meet on only one single occasion – at the personal interview. A decision is then made about who stays and who has to leave.

AfriDocs is an initiative of the multi-awarded South African documentary production and distribution company, Steps, in partnership with the Bertha Foundation.