Tag Archives: discrimination

Inshallah: Hope in Exile

The migrant camp of Las Raíces, Tenerife, houses 1,600 people. Most of them have been detained for months waiting for an asylum appointment that never seems to come. Some of migrants, driven by uncertainty about their future and the lack of dignified conditions, are building an alternative camp as a protest, and begin to organise. Meanwhile, others deal with family pressure and the frustration of waiting through their faith. We witness the every day lives of those who have begun their journey to a better life only to find themselves trapped between two worlds in a bureaucratic nightmare.

Inshallah: Hope in Exile is the plea of those who have been forced to leave their homes and, after risking their lives at sea, have been detained and held by the same nations that plundered their countries’ wealth. But above all, inshallah is the most used expression by the migrants in this camp. Hopefully.

Big Fight in Little China Town

Big Fight in Little Chinatown is a story of community resistance and resilience. Set against the backdrop of the unprecedented rise in anti-Asian racism, the documentary takes us into the lives of residents, businesses and community organizers whose neighborhoods are facing active erasure.

Coast to Coast the film follows Chinatown communities resisting the pressures around them. From the construction of the world’s largest vertical jail in New York, Montreal’s fight against developers swallowing up the most historic block of their Chinatown, big box chains and gentrification forces displacing Toronto’s community, to a Vancouver Chinatown business holding steadfast, the film reveals how Chinatown is both a stand-in for other communities who’ve been wiped off the city map, and the blueprint for inclusive and resilient neighbourhoods of the future.

Trial of a Child Denied

When Helena Ferenciková was 19 years old and in the throes of labour with her first child, she was told to sign a document. Only afterwards did she realise she had authorised her own sterilisation. Eleven years previously, the same happened to Elena Gorolová.

Both women are fighting for justice.

As Roma women, they face the hardships common to Roma communities throughout Europe as well as the difficulties of their own cultural norms which value a woman’s fertility above all else. With the Czech media demonising them as liars, parasites and trouble makers, and their own family alarmed at the attention, they struggle on. Helena has chosen legal action, and became the first Roma woman to win a case against the hospital that sterilised her and Elena addresses international audiences to ensure this never happens again.

Helena and Elena’s situations are a microcosm for the multiple sources of social injustice facing the Czech Republic’s Roma community. Through their poignant and unnerving stories, this film unearths the shocking anachronism of the practice of forced sterilisation that continued long after the Communist mandate.