Barcelona-based filmmaker Isabel Fernandez explores the struggles of minors
caught in the web of illegal migration across Europe. By Anand Holla
The phenomenon of global migration has always been most unkind to one section of the demographic – minors without parents or a guardian. While children below 18 venturing out on their own as immigrants have only increased in the past decade, this community is almost invisible for the rest of the society where they land up in.
Barcelona-based documentary filmmaker Isabel Fernandez felt unsettled by their apparent “invisibility” and intrigued by the many questions surrounding their life graph once they become adults. “Each of these teenagers’ stories is that of struggle and resistance,” Fernandez told Community.
At the 10th Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival, last week, Fernandez won Best Director award for her film on this subject, Long Distance Runners, in the long film category.
The engaging documentary follows the lives of Ahmed Kallouf, Mamadou Korka and Lukman Khallid, who, as children, began an endurance race that would change their futures. Without their families, they travelled thousands of kilometres illegally until they reached Barcelona, the city of their dreams.
“When they are 18, they leave the minor protection system, with a residence permit, but without a work permit. That’s when they start a race against time to resolve their situation, because if not, they will have to return home empty-handed,” said Fernandez, who came across this issue when she was working in social services and filming another documentary.
“I came across a lot of kids of different nationalities staying in Barcelona and got interested about them. Nobody in Europe thinks about these minors who illegally enter its countries dreaming of a better life. While the kid’s status instantly changes upon turning 18, there’s nothing on paper as to what the state must do with them. So they are stuck in protection centres without work permits, struggling to find a way out,” she said.
It is their ability to endure this gruelling race of life riddled with obstacles that Fernandez’s documentary tackles effectively. The film is “an emotional approach” to the situation of these adolescents, their loneliness and their personal struggles, feels Fernandez.
“Teenagers living the distress of being 18, needing to find a way out to the legal labyrinth in which they are trapped, as soon as possible. Kids who have to think as if they were adults, yet not knowing exactly how,” she states in a note to the film.
While Ahmed is from Oulad Mrah, a small mountain village in the heart of Morocco, Lukman is from a small village in Pakistan, and Mamadou, born in Guinea Conakry, has lived his childhood in Senegal. All were around 18 years of age at the time of the shoot. Filming them was an uphill task for Fernandez because she found them all to be like “little locked boxes.”
“It was tough to open them up. They trust almost no one, they hide their emotions, and they don’t want to be seen as losers. They are kids forced to act as independent adults,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez, who has worked extensively in social, cultural and character-driven documentaries, has travelled all over Europe through the European Broadcasting Union. Since she believes in “exploring the human soul from different perspectives,” Long Distance Runners was mostly an exercise in that. “Stories of teens like them were like an unknown reality; something that was part of our lives but nobody knew about it,” she said.
It is to know more about people, how they feel, and how they are that fuels Fernandez’s zest for pursuing real stories. “I believe documentary filmmaking is the best way to explore people’s souls and try and pick up some glimpses on how they experience their lives, and thereby let the audience learn from that.”
