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Asylum and migration

From December 04, 2015 until December 11, 20157:30 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:30 p.m. 3 euros for general tickets at the box office.

Casa Árabe is devoting its December events schedule to a very important current topic, that of societies giving asylum to refugees and the processes of migration and exile.

Casa Árabe has devoted a large part of its schedule of activities in 2015 to analyzing the Syrian refugee crisis and its humanitarian impact on the region. With our film schedule in December, we would like to contribute to giving a voice to the people involved in that crisis through two exceptional documentaries filmed in two refugee camps, one in Jordan and the other in Lebanon. Likewise, we will be examining the topic of emigration and emigrants’ integration into the societies where they are taken in, which have traditionally been located in Europe.

We will be showing the films El lugar de las fresas (Strawberry Fields Not Forever) by Maite Vitoria Daneris (Spain / Italy, 2013, 90 minutes); El juego del escondite (Hide and Seek) by David Muñoz (Spain, 2015, 23 minutes) and District Zero by Pablo Iraburu, Pablo Tosco and Jorge Fernández Mayoral (Spain, 2015, 67 minutes).
Asylum and migration
Fotograma de "El lugar de las fresas"
  • El lugar de las fresas (Strawberry Fields Not Forever)

    El lugar de las fresas (Strawberry Fields Not Forever)

    December 04, 20157:30 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:30 p.m. 3 euros for general tickets at the box office.
    2 euros for tickets purchased online, the officially unemployed, Casa Árabe Language Center students and Youth Card holders, with the proper documentation. You may only receive one of these discounts. On sale in advance at www.casaarabe.es or the day of the screening at the Casa Árabe headquarters, as of one hour before the film begins. Assigned seats with tickets. 
    Original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    Maite Vitoria Daneris, the director of this documentary, will be taking part in a debate with the audience after the film is shown.
    Lina is an elderly peasant woman from northern Italy. Her back is curved over, causing her to face towards the ground. Every morning at dawn, she goes to the largest open-air market in Europe, Porta Palazzo, in the center of Turin, where she sells her vegetables and strawberries. Lina’s life, as she says, consists of... “home, church and work.” Lina has no children, but she does have five dogs and her husband Gianni, who wants her to quit working. One day at the market, Hassan comes onto the scene, a young Moroccan immigrant who just reached Italy in search of work... 

    Strawberry Fields Not Forever (Spain/Italy, 2013, 90 minutes) is the story of these characters, filmed for seven years from the viewpoint of a young Spanish filmmaker, at such a common, universal place as the large open-air market. But above all it is a poetic film that shows the public the most pure and essential value of human beings through their work on the land.
     
    The film was awarded with the Grand Prize of the Jury for best documentary film at the Italian Film Festival of Annecy (France, 2014), First Prize for the best documentary film at the International Sguardi Altrove Film Festival of Milan (Italy, 2014), and the “Ucca” Award for Best Documentary Film and “Gli occhialdi di Ghandhi” as the Best Documentary Film at the Turin Film Festival (Italy, 2013). It has also been very well-received by audiences at theaters in Italy, France and Morocco.

    http://www.ellugardelasfresas.com/
  • <i>El juego del escondite</i> and <i>District Zero</i>

    El juego del escondite and District Zero

    December 11, 20157:30 p.m.
    MADRID
    Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:30 p.m. 3 euros for general tickets at the box office.
    2 euros for tickets purchased online, the officially unemployed, Casa Árabe Language Center students and Youth Card holders, with the proper documentation. You may only receive one discount. On sale in advance at www.casaarabe.es or the day of the screening at the Casa Árabe headquarters, as of one hour before the film begins. Assigned seats with tickets.
    Original language version with subtitles in Spanish.
    This double feature session with a medium-length film and feature-length documentary have been included on this December’s film screening calendar
    El juego del escondite (Hide and Seek), by David Muñoz (Spain, 2015, 23 minutes)

    A film crew travels to Lebanon to make a documentary about the game of “Hide and Seek” in a Syrian refugee settlement. Fatouma Al Hussein, a resident in an informal settlement known as “Fayda 15” (in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon) is followed by a camera and voices which instruct her where to walk, when to speak and what direction to look. In this way, she journeys through the makeshift dwellings amid the ruins of a factory where a group of Syrian families have sought refuge, fleeing from the war. As Fatouma apathetically shows us her everyday existence, the trouble she has getting food, the blankets she uses to keep warm and the basics to keep living, the children at the settlement run out amongst the houses, concentrating more on their game of hide-and-seek, which helps them forget where they truly are for a little while. Weariness, a lack of hope and a feeling of abandonment are just a few of the sensations expressed by the film’s main character and the inhabitants whom she encounters along the way. Added to all of this is a portrait in sound of those who, for just a few days, get a glimpse of the anguish and despair of this group of people, who have been withstanding the violence of a conflict growing increasingly complex by the day over the last four years.

    http://www.elesconditesirio.org/

    District Zero, by Pablo Iraburu, Pablo Tosco and Jorge Fernández Mayoral (Spain, 2015, 67 minutes)

    Like every other morning, Maamun opens up the doors to his store. It is a small white container. Next to it, thousands of containers exactly like it stretch off into the distance, as far as the eye can see. This is the Zaatari Refugee Camp, one of the largest in the world. Maamun repairs cell phones, restores photos and videos, and therefore helps recreate the only link that the refugees inside the camp have with their homeland, Syria. District Zero is a documentary about Maamun’s life in Zaatari. However, it is also the story of the more than 55 million refugees living around the world. Months ago, along with our partners from Txalap.art, we set off on this new project, hand-in-hand with Oxfam and the European Commission.

    www.districtzero.org