WHEN WE WERE THEM

When WE were THEM. An indictment of European refugee policy, a reflection on the paradoxes of history: how is it possible that people who have suffered the same fate in the recent past should now treat refugees as criminals?

“In the middle of nowhere in Bosnia, far from where they would like to be, thousands of migrants suffer, waiting,” says the voiceover. Drone footage shows a field in a forest, surrounded by tall fences that resemble a prison. This is how refugees live: many of them flee this sub-zero hell and seek refuge in abandoned buildings in ghost towns. Without running water or electricity, they try to survive the cold. All this happens a few kilometers away from us. Danis Tanoviċ and Damir Šagolj show the inhumanity of history that repeats itself over and over again.

Danis Tanović – Bosnian director and screenwriter, known for his No Man’s Land, Oscar for best foreign film in 2002.

Francesco Strazzari – Full professor of political science at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, adjunct research professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Af fairs. Specialized in security studies, armed conflict, geopolitics and transnational organized crime.