Wednesday 21st June 2017
Avi Mograbi and Chen Alon meet African asylum-seekers in a detention facility in the middle of the Negev desert where they are confined by the state of Israel. Together, they question the status of the refugees in Israel using 'Theatre of the Oppressed' techniques. What leads men and women to leave everything behind and go towards the unknown? Why does Israel, land of the refugees, refuse to take into consideration the situation of the exiled, thrown onto the roads by war, genocide and persecution? Can the Israelis working with the asylum seekers put themselves in the refugee's shoes? Can their collective unconscious be conjured up? Mograbi's film explores such themes as a way of portraying the true stories of migrants with no legal status seeking safety in a country that refuses to accept them.