Lina Lužytė: Blue/Red/Deport – Picnic in Mori

The point of view of the director, Lithuanian Lina Luytė, is clear from the very beginning. A boat with refugees is approaching the coast of Lesbos, the island where the infamous refugee camp Moria is situated. The one that burned down in 2020 with a new one being built that is as bad as the first one, reports say. The boat gets closer to the coast where people stand shouting “get away”. “Don´t come near”. Disgusting… 

Here is the catalogue text for the strongly recommended film that has been shown at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival and will be shown in Copenhagen at the CPH:DOX, link below for when and where. 

“Afghan filmmaker Talib Shah Hossaini wants to make a film about everyday life in Europe’s largest refugee camp, Moria. This is where he lives with his small family while they wait for the authorities about whether they can stay in Greece. Meanwhile, he casts his wife, their daughters and his friends as actors in his homemade no-budget film. Despite the inhumane conditions in the chaotic camp and a myriad of obstacles along the way, the deeply sympathetic Talib maintains his composure. Meanwhile, the line between reality and film-within-a-film is blurred when Talib and his wife are instructed on how to conduct themselves in the asylum interview that awaits them. Comic and tragic moments lead up to an incredible scene when Talib’s film is finally shown to the camp’s other residents…”

The title of Talib Shah’s flm is ”Picnic”, the title of Lina Luytė’s film is ”Blue/Red/Deport”, that refers to the three possibilities of the refugees in the camp, with a smile explained by one of the daughters of Talib Shah, who is – as the catalogue text says – ”deeply sympathetic” but also a man who shows his desparate situation to the Lithuanian director, who goes around with him, films the camp, how it looks, how the family lives, how they get water, how they cook, how the kids manage to overcome, how his wife conveys the situation – and how the filming takes place with sometimes many takes of a scene, especially the one where uncle Norullah, who has been in the camp for a year has again been rejected asylum. Or the tough one, where Talib Shah gets totally upset with his children as they don´t perform well falling in the water. There is a fine flow from the film being made by Talib Shah and the respectful observation of Lina Luytė. 

And the end – the screening of “Picnic”, a fiction taken out of reality, the audience looking at the film, children, children, children, their faces, what do they think, what do they take from their stay in this horrible place… and the reactions from some of spectators after the screening. This is how it is.

Germany, 2022, 81 mins.

https://cphdox.dk/film/blue-red-deport/