Documentary film: «I can’t go back home»

«I can’t go back home», from TV3, at the FICMA Festival

Original press release over the documentary film shown by TV3 (Televisió de Catalunya) at 07/02/2017.

The feature film «I Can’t Go Back Home», produced by TV3, with the collaboration of Ottokar and directed by Josep Morell, will be shown tomorrow, 2017 November 8, at the International Festival of Environment Film (FICMA), which began the last week and will last until this Friday. The documentary, premiered on the TV3 program «Sense Ficció» (Without Fiction), is a journey that discovers, through four stories, how complicated it is to get the political refugee papers in Spain.

The FICMA Festival, which this year reaches the 24th edition, has selected «I can’t go back home» to participate in the category of Catalan Documentary, within the Official Section. The screening of the film will take place on November 8, at 9.30 pm, at the Zumzeig movie theaters in Barcelona.

The event aims to educate and raise awareness through entertainment, taking audiovisual materials as an instrument of communication and arrival to all people. This year, FICMA works under the motto and with the hashtag: ‘Posa’t #EnLaSevaPell’ (putyourself #InHisSkin)

«I can’t go back home»

Four different stories and the same objective. The documentary reflects the drama of people seeking political asylum in Spain and portrays the defenseless situation in which these citizens find themselves. «I can’t go back home» inquires into why Spain, territory of the southern border of Europe, stands at the tail of the European Union regarding the granting of papers to asylum seekers.

Joan Babeli (Syria) lives in Catalonia since 1980 and is an official of the Generalitat (catalan government). In October of last year, his brother Riad fled from the Syrian city of Aleppo and Joan went to look for him in Austria to take him to Artés, in the Catalan region of El Bages. Two months later, and without getting legal status in Catalonia, Riad traveled to Germany, where she has obtained asylum applicant papers and started a new life.

Ali Berthe fled Mali after the death of his father and his brother because of the conflict that affects the north of the country. Ali has lived for three years in a shelter located in Santa Perpètua de Mogoda, in the Vallès Occidental in Catalonia (Spain), building a new life. However, every six months he must renew the papers of political asylum seeker, always with the uncertainty that this represents.

Ahmad Basal was born in Aleppo and 2015 crossed Europe for a month and a half, dressed as a tourist. While his companions went to other countries, he went to Salt. In this municipality, a family of Syrian origin, the Waez, with whom she has no family ties, received him to help him build a new life and make his dream come true: to open a Syrian pastry shop in Girona.

Finally, the documentary also includes the testimony of Yarbah al-Monfoud, who had Spanish nationality until 1975 because he was born in the former colony of Spanish Sahara. Yarbah is a refugee from a country not recognized by Spain and, therefore, illegal and stateless. Now he is again claiming the Spanish nationality from the Madrid government, along with 400 of his compatriots and, in addition, he is also studying to make a living on his own.

UNHCR, the UN Agency for Refugees, has warned that the number of people displaced in the world due to armed conflicts is close to 60 million. In addition, it also notes that there are about 5 million Syrians, representing a quarter of the population, who have fled their country because of the war situation. Meanwhile, the borders of the European Union remain closed.

[you can access the video by clicking on the following «image», but remember that dialogues are in catalan:]