by Thalia Chin & Poppy Carter
In November, we hosted a screening of short films at Farr’s in Dalston as part of the inaugural Our Shared Futures: Climate & Migration Community Film Festival – co-produced by Earth Refuge, Counterpoints Arts, CMJ (Climate & Migrant Justice Organising Group), and City of Sanctuary.
We come from professional backgrounds in migration humanitarian work and documentary film making, so this festival was the perfect opportunity to combine the two and bring people from both our fields together, as well as the local community.
We chose to screen 3 beautiful short films:
And Still, It Remains (2023) dir. Arwa Aburawa & Turab Shah
Dead As A Dodo (2022) dir. Leena Habiballa
Until The Last Drop (2020) dir. Tim Webster & Ernesto Cabellos
Many of the stories told in the films were ones that neither of us had heard of (the nuclear tests in the Sahara being a poignant one), and it felt important for us to play at least a small part in creating a space for these stories to be shared.
We were lucky enough to have Yumna Kamel from Earth Refuge join us straight from COP30 for a Q&A session at the end. The audience was really engaged and it made all the difference having someone who could speak to key questions around who climate refugees are, how their work at Earth Refuge supports them, and how we can all contribute towards creating tangible change.
Key takeaways:
- Something that surprised us while we were coordinating the event was how open people in the local community were to supporting us. When the manager of the venue heard about the festival and our hopes and intentions for the screening, he kindly offered us the space for free, and local cafes were more than happy to spread the word. At a time when the political discourse on migration is increasingly led by the far right and feels poisonous, it is encouraging to remember that they are not representative of the whole. Whilst we are seeing a rise in fascist anti-immigrant discourse, we are also seeing communities increasingly coming together and mobilising against this. This sentiment was clearly felt throughout the event.
- Film is an incredibly important tool for shared learning and to help facilitate these discussions, through highlighting the human element and human impact of climate displacement. It is a powerful medium through which to increase empathy and understanding around a subject that can often feel abstract and hard to quantify due to the slow and protracted nature of climate change.
- Hosting the event was a great way to involve people in discussions, as high-level policy forums are often very exclusive, colonial, and Eurocentric. Films, especially when shared through community screenings such as these, create an opportunity to break down these barriers to access and make these conversations more inclusive.
Overall we loved the experience and would encourage others to host or get involved in similar local events. We are hoping to host more in the future through a monthly film night, to continue encouraging community dialogue around topics such as climate and migration. To find out more or to get involved, feel free to get in touch at [email protected] (@tea_chinn) or [email protected] (@poppy.kiddcarter) – we’d love to hear from you and keep connecting and building community networks in this space.