Belmont World Film Observes World Refugee Awareness Month

Belmont World Film observes World Refugee Awareness Month with a series of three films, honors the world’s 22.5 million refugees and those who work on refugee and immigrant issues. The program is supported by a grant from the Mass Cultural Council and financial support from Belmont Against Racism and the Quebec Delegation of Boston.

Each film will be available for streaming for one week at a time, starting Tuesdays at 12:01 AM until the following Monday at 9:00 PM; the films can be watched as many times as desired during a 48-hour period. Each week concludes with a Q&A with the film’s director or expert speaker on Mondays at 7:30 PM via Zoom.

The films in the series include:

ANTIGONE (New England premiere), directed by Sophie Deraspe, is a narrative film about an Algerian immigrant family in present-day Montreal whose lives are turned upside down, in this riveting twist on Sophocles’s classical Greek tragedy. According to Deraspe, it is a “universal story about family, love, dignity and resistance,” so you don’t have to know the play in order to appreciate the film, which was Canada’s submission for the Best International Feature Film Oscar in 2020. The film streams June 1-7, with the Q&A with the director on Monday, June 7.

THE JUMP, directed by Giedre Zickyte, is a documentary about a Lithuanian sailor, Simas Kudirka, who in a desperate bid for freedom decides to jump across the water from a Soviet vessel anchored just off the shore of Martha’s Vineyard on to an American boat, on Thanksgiving Day in 1970. To his horror, and to the outcry of the world media, the Americans return him to the Soviets, where he is then tried for treason and imprisoned for 8 years in Siberia. The incident set off a series of protests throughout the US, including several in Boston, begging for his freedom. New information about Simas’s citizenship surfaces, marking the beginning of a long political battle to save him. Through eye-witness reports, rare archival footage, and a dramatic first-person re-enactment by the now 90-year-old, the film takes the viewer on a journey that became an inspiration for people, pictures and politics, reaching all the way up to the White House. The film streams June 8-14, with the Q&A with the director on Monday, June 14.

A FISH TALE, directed by Emmanuelle Mayer, is an intimate documentary filmed over the course of 10 years about a family from Africa that moves to Israel, leaving two of their children behind. The husband believes in the future of Africa, so he dreams of returning one day to open a fish farm, after an Israeli business owner teaches him how to do it free of charge. In contrast, his wife sees little hope back home and is determined to create the best possible future for their children, whatever the price may be. When their Israeli visas expire, tensions between the two arise, leading to an inevitable clash. The film contrasts male and female narratives and raises ideas of choice versus fate. The film streams June 15-21, with the Q&A with the director on Monday, June 21, the day after World Refugee Day.

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