The Eleven Films About Refugees You Need To See
They're less depressing than the real thing.
When I Saw You (2012)
Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir’s family drama is surprisingly warm, tender and even playful, given that it’s set in the most dire of circumstances: a refugee camp in the Jordanian desert, where thousands of anxious Palestianians sweat out the 1967 war and the occupation of their land.
Among the new arrivals to this place of concrete, corrugated metal and dust is a traumatised but scrappy boy (Mahmoud Asfa), and his stoic but overwhelmed mother (Ruba Blal); the boy’s father is missing. When Tarek runs away to find him, he stumbles onto a group of scruffy, charismatic, Marx-quoting, AK-47-toting freedom fighters training for the final battle they assume is coming. There he learns a thing or two about self-determination and brotherhood. It’s a touching coming-of-age tale that’s way more militant than most.
When I Saw You screens in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra at the Arab Film Festival Australia in August.