Balsam Karam’s The Singularity (translated by Saskia Vogel) is a quietly devastating book about displacement and loss, and the tribulations faced by refugees. It revolves around two stories of two very different mothers. In doing so, Karam is able to range across a range of experiences of people displaced from their homes. In what is…
The Old Oak is widely regarded as likely to be the final film from revered 86-year-old British director Ken Loach. For over six decades, the filmmaker has championed the working class and their concerns. His film career began in 1967 with Poor Cow and since then Loach’s films have always tackled contemporary social issues with…
Writer-director Ben Sharrock draws on his own experiences of living in Syria and working with refugees in Algeria to shape Limbo. This bittersweet drama explores the loss of identity and self often felt by refugees waiting in limbo for their situation to change. The film centres around Omar (Egyptian actor Amir el Masry), a Syrian…
The question of the world’s ever-growing number of refugees is, indeed, one without an easy answer. So the heartfelt documentary Human Flow is welcome. And all the more so because it has the stamp of artist Ai Weiwei all over it. He travels across 23 countries plotting the plight of refugees because he sees the refugee…
