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Border Conversations
Prize-winner 2023
YOUNG C. AWARD
| Author: | Jonathan Brunner Examiner: Thomas Lauterbach |
| Direction: | Jonathan Brunner |
| Producer: | Tristan Schneider |
Content
The film follows Karolina and Kornelia, two Polish activists who care for migrants at Poland’s border with Belarus. It is November 2021, thousands are trying to reach the European Union on this route. Many are wandering through the woods, desperately asking for help via chat messages. The two Polish women do what they can, but they come up against the limits of humanitarian aid in a Europe that is increasingly focusing on sealing itself off from the rest of the world and, in the process, accepting great human suffering.
Excerpt from the jury’s statement
“The film succeeds with reduced means, does without dramatic images and music and relies entirely on the dialogue of the two activists. The plight of the refugees is not directly shown and yet all the more present, for example when there is no answer to the message ‘How are you?’ The protagonists’ dilemma between helplessness and tenacity becomes tangible. It is, in both senses of the word, a borderline experience and an impressive portrayal of the everyday scandal called pushback.”
Header: iStockphoto / CreVis2