The rule of exception

Logline

Between 2018 and 2021, the continuous deterioration of the refugee’s situation on the island of Lesbos reflects the nature of the European Union’s migration policy. On top of the misery, in which thousands of people are kept in in camps on the Greek islands, comes the COVID-19 pandemic. The burning down of Moria camp in midst of the 2020 pandemic is the consequence of what the EU has put in place.

Data

Synopsis

“… the so called refugee crisis in Europe – it is a management crisis, it is a policy made crisis, it is a political crisis – but not a refugee crisis.” Apostolos, Doctors without borders, Athens 2018

On the island of Lesbos a former prison is turned into a refugee camp, the refugee camp is turned into a prison, refugees put in detention are being used as a deterrence measure to send out the signal to others not even try to come to Europe. The state of exception becomes the rule of the EU’s migration policy.

An island in flames indicating contradictions of societies, their representatives deliberately selling out it’s proclaimed values in turning the friendly sea surrounding the island into a cemetery, misery into the sole alternative to death at home, deliberately setting fire and leaving it to the wind to finish what they started.

This is a film about the EU apparatus, about the creation of fear as a policy, about trenches running through Europe. This is a film about traumas and secondary traumas. As fishermen in their small boat in the Mediterranean we cast our nets in discourses, into various stories around a tangible and metaphorical island, fishing to reveal what the depth of the sea conceals.

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