Documentary screening and discussion Projection

Projection dans le cadre du congrès (GIS - MOMM) et de la journée d’étude « Refugee Literature »

The Unreturned (USA, 2010). Director : Nathan Fisher.
Runtime : 75 min

With the European refugee crisis dominating the news, the public are often unaware that this same crisis has been ravaging the Middle East for many years, resulting from numerous military interventions from the West. Nathan Fisher’s 2010 documentary The Unreturned takes a bold and intimate look into the lives of Iraqi refugees displaced to Syria and Jordan by the war. This group of people, who are of diverse social, ethnic and religious backgrounds, share their struggles of integrating into the host – and often hostile – societies of the neighboring Arab countries. The film exposes the media’s misrepresentation of the biggest consequence of the U.S. war in Iraq, and shatters Western stereotypes and prejudices about Iraq. The screening will be followed by an open discussion focusing on both the content and the cinematic features of this verité-style documentary.

Discutant : Valerie Anishchenkova, Associate Professor of Arabic Studies, Core Faculty in Film Studies, University of Maryland