journey to the land of asylum
To my grandmother, gone on a trip, the day of the publication of this site
To wander, the free spirit and the head elsewhere
Told exclusively by pictures
video surveillance, this impressionist immersion recreates the journey
of a young migrant who fled Iran.
"Signed by the duo of directors Isabelle Ingold and Vivianne Perelmuter, Elsewhere, everywhere" is at the crossroads of these two paths. Shahin is a young Iranian migrant who fled the city of Fuladshahr. After reaching Greece, he arrives in England where he seeks asylum. Isolated in this new land and awaiting an answer from the immigration service, the young boy spends his days in front of his computer screen and develops a fascination for images of surveillance cameras that he flushes out on the internet.
Constructed by alternating voice-overs of SMS or telephone conversations between Vivianne Perelmulter and Shahin and the reading of a questionnaire from the immigration office, the film will be put into images exclusively through these multiple web windows, the only way for Shahin to experience the outside world."
Les Inrockuptibles, Ludovic Béot, 11/30/2021
To wander, the free spirit and the head elsewhere
Told exclusively by pictures
video surveillance, this impressionist immersion recreates the journey
of a young migrant who fled Iran.
"Signed by the duo of directors Isabelle Ingold and Vivianne Perelmuter, Elsewhere, everywhere" is at the crossroads of these two paths. Shahin is a young Iranian migrant who fled the city of Fuladshahr. After reaching Greece, he arrives in England where he seeks asylum. Isolated in this new land and awaiting an answer from the immigration service, the young boy spends his days in front of his computer screen and develops a fascination for images of surveillance cameras that he flushes out on the internet.
Constructed by alternating voice-overs of SMS or telephone conversations between Vivianne Perelmulter and Shahin and the reading of a questionnaire from the immigration office, the film will be put into images exclusively through these multiple web windows, the only way for Shahin to experience the outside world."
Les Inrockuptibles, Ludovic Béot, 11/30/2021
Isabelle Ingold:
"NOTWe have chosen to stick to the sensitive and the documents. The questionnaire from the immigration office, for example, is a document, a source of information. What questions are asked? What questions are evaded?
Shahin's answers also document, describing very precisely his trip, the price, the wait, the modus operandi of the smugglers, etc.
This narrative thread intertwines with others, telephone conversations with the mother, for example. They have very different tones and styles. They complement each other but also contradict each other. As in the life of a man.
The asylum procedure, on the other hand, asks migrants to transform their lives into a rigid narrative, with very strict rules. The story must be logical, clear, unambiguous, monolithic and verifiable. But life is not like that.
We wanted to offer another story, a “counter-story”.(...)"
Vivianne Perelmuter:
The profusion of images and information, especially on asylum seekers, puts us on automatic pilot, gives us the impression of knowing everything already, of having gone through it all.
These images eventually come to screen, simplifying the world and preventing us from experiencing.
Yancouba Badji
Saying "no it's not okay", I can say it with my painting.
My weapons are my brushes and my colors. It saves my life, it washes my brain, that's why I commit myself every day, that I devote time to my painting. It is thanks to her that I live, that I share. What happiness when I see that I touch those who look at my works! It saves me.
"The Mandingos say that if you take a path that leads nowhere,
you have to go back where you came from."
In the documentary "Tilo Koto", by Sophie Bachelier and Valérie Malek
the Senegalese painter Yancouba Badji
recounts the ordeals he had to go through to reach Europe.
A long journey of several years.
There is also this painting, Lapa Lapa, representing a boat in the middle of the blue, filled with faces of which we only see the eyes, magnified by fear.
Yancouba shows the painting to a companion: "You only see the eyes because everyone is afraid", laughs the latter, because at the end, they know that there is
“either Italy, or prison, or death”. And he recounts their capsizing in this
"devil's boat", how everyone ended up in the water and their laughter died out.
Article from RFI, 15/12/2021
Valerie Malek
When we met Yancouba Badji, in this center in Tunisia,we were overwhelmed by the strength of her character, after having lived through so much, at the risk of his life. And by this clarity deployed when he evoked his history, always stated collectively. We then thought that his story could embody that of others.
He told us:“I can no longer tell what I experienced, it's unbearable, I no longer have the words. »
We asked him what we could bring him from France,he asked for brushes and paint. And the film took another direction.
Yancouba Badji began to paint situations experienced with great precision, such as the departure of pick-ups from Agadez before crossing the desert or slavery at the Zavia camp in Libya. In this way, he informs young people and families about the dangers of this clandestine route. Yancouba returned to Casamance and never stopped painting. (...)
West-France from 07/02/2022