The Nightmare in Alps

Documentary film, 32 min

Directed by: Jamshid Golmakani 

During the length of the film, the director in his native language -Persian-, recounts his nightmare in the Alps.

Migrants, on their road to exile, covertly cross the high mountains of the Alps to the Italian border and arrive in France. On this passage, four men and a woman have already died. Some had their legs amputated due to the freezing weather.

J. Golmakani made several stays in Briançon (a town close to the Italian border) with to the vision of making a feature-length documentary film.

He spends a lot of time at the Solidarity Refuge in Briançon, managed by courageous and determined volunteers. Here, the migrants, after a short rest, continue their road of exile to Great Britain or other countries of Northern Europe. Most of them are men between twenty and twenty five years old. Young couples with children are numerous.

From Turkey, they have illegally reached the Greek islands with a small boat. Some have been trapped in the islands for a few months, some for one or two years. On each island, twenty to thirty thousand people from Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Bangladesh and Africa live in a shed. For them, life on the island is likened to hell. After getting out of hell, illegally, they leave behind the countries of Montenegro, Bosnia, Albania, Croatia, Slovenia and Italy on foot.

They have walked about six thousand kilometers.

J. Golmakani observes that the victims of tyrannical reigning powers in the world are not only freedom seekers and political opponents. They have very sweet hopes and dreams for their future beautiful life in Europe.

For J. Golmakani, in the process of applying for asylum and living as immigrants, they get to know the realities themselves. For him is very strange and painful nightmare is facing this vast wave of immigrants and refugees with such sweet dreams.

Phone : 33-(0)651 082158  horizondoc@hotmail.fr   www.horizondoc.jimdo.com

Jamshid Golmakani is an Iranian filmmaker, author and journalist. In 1977 he began his career as a photojournalist in Tehran-Iran. Since 1982 he is refugee in France. He studied and obtain a Doctorate in Cinema and Television from Sorbonne University. He is the author of Image of Iran on French Television. Golmakani has produced and directed many documentary films for French television as well as many other television companies outside of France.

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