The Refugee Project ®: The Film

Refugees is a 33 minute short film/slideshow edited with hundreds of the still photographs from The Refugee Project. Screenings have taken place in Istanbul, Lucania/Italy and in Winnipeg Canada on several occasions. It supports the exhibit and the various installations the photographs partook in.

Photography: Bikem Ekberzade, The Refugee Project

Editing: Neslihan Karaduman

Titles: Erdinc Demir

Music: Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky, God Speed You Black Emperor

How it all started...

The Refugee Project is the brainchild of documentary photographer Bikem Ekberzade. Ekberzade started the Project in the midst of the Kosovo crisis. Her aim was to try and shed light to the humanitarian crisis in the Balkan triangle of Albania-Kosovo-Macedonia. She travelled to Northern Albania first in 1998, to document the lives of Kosovar Albanians seeking shelter in the region. With the support of UNHCR and a German NGO HCC (Humanitarian Cargo Carriers) in Albania and International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent (IFRC/ICRC) in Macedonia she was able to move around and visit the refugee families in their places of refuge. She continued her work for 2 years, until fighting ceased in Kosovo and the border opened leading to a rapid return and repatriation.

Azerbaijan was the next step in the Refugee Project. The status quo in the region had left the IDPs (Internally Displaced People) stranded in the refugee camps for over 20 years. Living in mud-shacks in refugee camps, mostly away from the large cities, these uprooted people were trying to survive where no hope for their return flourished. Despite the fact that their territory was occupied by another country, they were nowhere in the news, noone was coming to their rescue, and the only mention of them were as “burdens” in a country’s economy, unwanted, forgotten.

Following additions to the Refugee Project were the Afghan refugees in Pakistan and the internally displaced in the Penshir valley of central Afghanistan. Ekberzade continued the project documenting the lives of two illegal refugees in Istanbul. The collection of photographs led to a book titled ILLEGAL. The most recent addition to The Refugee Project is the Darfur conflict and the Sudanese refugees taking shelter in Chad.

The simple intention to highlight a humanitarian crisis has now turned into an expansive project seeking to document and expose the grim and overlooked nature of the global refugee crisis. Ekberzade is seeking to concentrate on populations running from direct threat to their livelihood in their country of origin and seeking shelter in different parts of the globe. The project is based on the people themselves, and the photographer above all wishes to extend her gratitute to all families who have placed much valued trust in her and taken her into their lives.

The Refugee Project ®

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Social Science Research Council

Chad/Darfur Emergency -- Situation Reports

IFRC Crisis Watch

UNHCR | The UN Refugee Agency

Making Sense of Darfur

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