Mijke de Jong: Along the Way

Zahra and Fatima are twins and the protagonists of the Dutch film that was shown last night at the one year old Cineplex that is now the main screening venue for the Sarajevo Film Festival. The film’s title is “Along the Way” and it was shown as part of the Dealing With the Past program. I had the pleasure of introducing the film and moderate the discussion with the assistant director Natascha Erfanipour. An easy job as the young Dutch woman with Iranian roots spoke lively about how the film came to become the drama it is, a drama yes, but with so much authenticity that I took for a documentary the first time I saw it. But the twins are acting and they are acting so well – but it took time to get to this, explained Erfanipour with a smile. But all – almost all – is based on their own stories, told to the film team, made into a precise script to be followed. In some scenes they had to be angry with each other, that was difficult for them…

The story is one of those, we have met so many times in these hard times, a refugee story: the twins buy themselves way to Istanbul, get separated from mother and siblings, work to save money for the ocean trip from Turkey to Lesbos, they succeed, they get to the camp everyone knows, Moria, and they reach Athens to have a very emotional meeting with the mother and the daughter. In Istanbul they meet Rahim, a young man, who is a smuggler and for whom Zahra works to collect money to cross the EU…

There are more to be experienced, some personal statements from refugees not to be revealed here but I hope you get the chance to watch this fine film “based on a true story” with Zahra and Fatima, who in real life are now waiting for getting asylum in Germany and at a longer perspective to be filmmakers. Wish them all the best!

The Netherlands, 2021, 80 mins.