World Refugee Day
Featuring Kamal Ibrahim, Prudence Melom and Rahila Abdul Hardi.
Created for the ASRC’s Telethon event on World Refugee Day. This five-part narrative film attempted to go beyond the ‘feel good’.
Resilience is a word that gets thrown around a lot. And celebrating the strength of people seeking asylum is vital, but if that conversation is not also acknowledging that so many of the ‘challenges’ people seeking asylum are being applauded for overcoming are actually stemming from racist systems upheld by the same people doing the clapping, it’s just fluff.
Racism is the root cause of the injustices faced by people seeking asylum in this country. The cruel policies of our Government can only exist if they’re backed by the everyday racism people seeking asylum meet on the street, in their workplaces and in the classroom.
I encourage you to read Rahila’s written story and visit Prudence’s anti racism non-profit, ‘E-RACED’ to learn a bit more.
Shot across two days we produced three short stories, a poem recital and a hero commercial for SBS digital, plus a suite of images used in a poster campaign. The event raised over $1 million.
︎ Direction: Sam Biddle and Lilah Benetti
︎ DOP: Samuel Kostevc
︎ Assist: Nadeemy Betros & Sam Hussain
︎ Edit: Geri.tv
︎ MUA: Agartu Vision
︎ Stills: Sam Biddle
