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Italian-Iraqi filmmaker Haider Rashid recreates a realistic survival experience in an urgent film that’s essential viewing for every European citizen.
Directed by: Haider Rashid
Year: 2021
Country: Iraq, Italy, Kuwait
Length: 72 minutes
We follow a man who’s making his way through the woods. We do not know who he is or what his background is. Title cards have informed us about the cultural context and setting Europa takes place in.
The film is set at the Turkey-Bulgaria border, along the Balkan route; a place where thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and parts of Africa try to reach Europe, hoping to find a better life. The forests long these borders are patrolled by organized groups of nationalists who call themselves ‘migrant hunters’. Their personal goal is to get these refugees away from their land and they’re not afraid to kill in order to achieve that.
Our main character, who later in the film introduces himself as the Iraqi Kamal, narrowly escapes the border patrol, after he and the group of people he’s with are busted while attempting to make their way into Europe. Kamal, all by himself, finds his way into the forest, where he must find a way to survive without having any recourses like food, water and clothes. Meanwhile he’s surrounded by helicopters and violent nationalists who are out for blood. Throughout the film, the only focal point is Kamal and his journey through the endless woods. It’s a total nerve-racking experience, with the sounds of gunshots and the sights of dead bodies adding elements of terror to this heart-racing survival thriller.Europa depicts a situation in which one has to be on their guard at all times, due to the constant lingering danger.
Shaky handheld cinematography and fast cuts add to the chaotic and disorienting nature of the film. Whenever Kamal moves, no matter how fast, the cameraperson (and thus the viewer) moves along with him.
British-Libyan actor Adam Ali delivers a remarkable performance as Kamal. While the role is extremely physically demanding, with a character that’s always either running, crawling, fighting, swimming or climbing, the actor also manages to perfectly depict the pain, anxiety and sadness felt by his character in this very terrifying and bleak situation. In a film with minimal dialogue, Ali’s jarring movements, facial expressions, groans and cries do all the work in portraying this tortured soul.
There’s no Hollywood glorification or overt dramatization to be found in Europa. director Haider Rashid fully focuses on realism, translating a real-life experience to the big screen. This may be off-putting to some, considering the film doesn’t follow a standard -narrative- structure. However, it hits hard once you know that this is reality for thousands of people and realize that after these 72 minutes, while the viewer gets to go on with their regular life, others will be going through the same struggles Kamal is facing that same moment.
With Europa, Rashid works with a subject he’s familiar with. His father fled Iraq in 1978 and arrived in Bulgaria when seeking refuge in Europe. Though his father’s journey is different from Kamal’s, Rashid felt like it was important for him to tell this story. Hopefully many others will realize how essential telling a story like this is too.
In a continent where immigration is seen as a crisis for all the wrong reasons and where many citizens demonize refugees, casually referring to them as ‘fortune seekers’, Europa should be mandatory viewing. The real people that the central character of this film represents are risking their lives in order to reach a place of safety. Hopefully this terrifyingly distressing experience of a film will open the eyes of people and make them want to learn about the bleak realities in many refugees’ lives and make the viewer empathize with those people, even though a film or any other kind of art form shouldn’t have had to be necessary in order for ‘foreigners’ to be humanized in the eyes of the privileged west.
Europa premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival as part of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs/Director’s Fortnight program.
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