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#MigrantStories: Watch AfriDocs Immigration Stories on Silverbird TV & TV3 Ghana

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AfriDocs, Africa’s only free streaming platform for documentary films, recently launched an emotive and engaging series of films that tackle the complex issues of immigration and migration told from African perspectives. These powerful documentaries have already aired across Africa, leading to debate, conversation, and an opening up of the traditional narrative around migration.

These films use the power of documentary filmmaking to show real-life stories told from the perspective of African migrants during their harrowing attempts to make it to Europe in hopes of a better life. Take a journey through a film that shows the realities, the honest feelings and the facts about attempting to make it across land and sea at all cost.

With the aim of both debunking many of the rumours that exist about immigration and migrants, as well as to humanize the people so often objectified through the West’s portrayal, these six films will once again air on Nigeria’s Silverbird TV, while four of the films will also screen on Ghana’s TV3 over the next few weeks, and for those who may miss the television broadcast, they are also available to stream FREE  on the AfriDocs streaming platform, www.afridocs.net.

AfriDocs is committed to the broadcasting and streaming of African focused documentaries that reflect African voices and with this specialized focus on migration, the series hopes to inspire conversation, debate, and the production of more African produced content. With the support of the German Foreign Office, AfriDocs presents these films as part of outreach to migrants, and those considering migration in order to enable them to make more informed and empowered decisions.

AfriDocs also invites viewers to share their migration experiences and insights via social media conversations. Make sure to follow and be part of the conversations using #MigrantStories on Facebook and on Twitter @afri_docs. The following films will be screened on Silverbird TV Nigeria and TV3 Ghana as per the schedule listed below.

When Paul Came Over the Sea | Jakob Preuss | Germany | 2017 | 97 min

Paul has made his way from his home in Cameroon across the Sahara to the Moroccan coast where he now lives in a forest waiting for the right moment to cross the Mediterranean. This is where he meets Jakob, a filmmaker from Berlin, who is filming along Europe’s borders. Soon afterwards, Paul manages to cross over to Spain on a rubber boat. He survives – but half of his companions die on this tragic 50-hour odyssey. When Paul decides to continue on to Germany, Jakob has to make a choice: will he become an active part of Paul’s pursuit of a better life or remain a detached documentary filmmaker?

Saturday, January 19th 06.30 Silverbird TV

My Escape, 90 minutes, Elke Sasse, 2016 

The mobile phone, for a lot of refugees, is an essential tool to organize their escape: They use it as a GPS, to get information or exchange information in groups, to contact smugglers and keep contact to family members and friends. Some use as a “reporter tool”. Made up from mobile phone footage of migrants or refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea during their escape journeys to Europe, plus interviews after their arrival in Germany (or Europe).

For #MyEscape the filmmakers edited material filmed by refugees with only the in-depth interviews after their arrival was filmed by the filmmakers themselves.  This different perspective is visible in the documentary: It is not a professional film crew filming a broken refugee boat from a safeguard boat. The camera is in the hand of a refugee on a broken boat when suddenly a boat is approaching to rescue them. The camera is also inside an empty trunk, searching for a small hole, for air or hidden while filming traffickers who take the decision on the future of the person, who is filming. It is “my escape” not “their escape.”

Saturday, January 19th, 10.00 Silverbird TV

Days of Hope, 55 mins, Dittte Haarløv Johnsen, 2014

Three immigrant stories interlace to offer a portrait of the brave souls who leave Africa for Europe but who always stay connected with home. We rarely see immigrants on the move as humans. Do they have lives separate from the process of immigration? But in fact in globalised, connected world immigrants are as we are. As the narrative unfolds we learn that each of the three characters has motivations very similar to those that drive us.

Sunday, January 20th, 08.00 Silverbird TV

Monday, January 28th, 22:30 – TV3

Revenir (To Return), 78 mins, David Fedele and Kumut Imesh, 2018

REVENIR is a collaboration between the filmmaker and Kumut Imesh, a political refugee from the Ivory Coast in West Africa, currently living in France. Part road-trip, part memoir, part journalistic investigation, this film follows Kumut as he returns to the African continent and attempts to retrace the same journey that he himself took more than ten years ago when forced to flee civil war in his country …. But this time with a camera in his hand.

Saturday, January 26th, 06.30 Silverbird TV

Monday, February 4th, 22:30 TV3

Those Who Jump | Moritz Sebert | Morocco, Spain | 2016 | 80 min

In northern Morocco lies the Spanish enclave of Melilla: Europe on African land. On the mountain above, live more than a thousand hopeful African migrants, watching the fence separating Morocco and Spain. Abou from Mali is one of them – the protagonist in front of the camera, as well as the person behind it. At the fence, they have to overcome the razor-wire, automatic pepper spray and brutal authorities. After every failed attempt, they return to Mount Gurugú, scouring for food in the nearby villages, trying to uphold some sort of order in the camp, and building up their confidence again.

Saturday, January 26th, 10.00 Silverbird TV

Monday, February 11th 22:30 TV3

Aji Bi, Under the Clock Tower | Raja Saddiki | Morocco | 2016 | 66 min

The film follows the small community of Senegalese women who are living and working in Casablanca, in limbo between “regularisation” in Morocco or attempting to “cross” to Europe. With humour and sensitivity, the film documents their daily life, as well as their struggles – trying to organise themselves and survive in a Moroccan society that is at the same time generous and hostile.

Sunday, January 27th, 08.00 Silverbird TV

Monday, February 18th, 22:30 TV3.
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