A documentary by a Santa Barbara filmmaker, The Burning: The Untold Story of Africa’s Refugee Crisis, addresses a massive, yet little-known refugee crisis halfway around the world.
"The Burning chronicles the journeys of 10 individuals, 10 refugees who are fleeing their home countries across Africa over the course of 10 years," said Isabella Alexander-Nathani, who produced and directed the film. "It's looking at the struggle that people face trying to reach a place where they can apply for asylum. For the majority of people leaving their homes anywhere on the continent in Africa, that place is the EU (the European Union)."
She’s an anthropologist and university instructor who lived and worked in North Africa. When she saw what was happening, she got involved in human rights efforts and decided to make a documentary about it.
"My film follows the journeys of refugees who are fleeing the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Sierra Leone, and Guinea," said Alexander-Nathani. "There are 10 individuals from three different families. In the end, you see just how brutal that journey is for them to even have the chance to apply for asylum, much less get it. Of the 10 whose journeys I follow, only one gets refugee status."
Making the documentary wasn’t easy. "The film was shot entirely undercover," said Alexander-Nathani. For about half of the shoot, she was working alone. Authorities would often confiscate footage.
"The reason that this is happening, and we aren't seeing more headlines about it, is happening in places where foreign media is either completely banned, or is tightly controlled."
But Alexander-Nathani said the danger was much greater than the confiscated footage for those in the documentary.
"It took so much courage for these 10 people to say they want the world to see the journey they were about to embark on," said the filmmaker. "The journey itself takes incredible courage, but making this journey while sharing your story is phenomenal. I am so proud of them."
At one point, the Santa Barbara filmmaker was arrested, and it looked like she would be behind bars for years.
"I was facing a 10-year prison sentence for foreign espionage in Algeria," said Alexander-Nathani. "I was incredibly fortunate that the late, great Rev. Jesse Jackson was informed about my case and took it on. It's thanks to him that I'm not there today."
Still, she spent nearly a month behind bars in Algeria.
Alexander-Nathani said she created the documentary to show how the European Union is acting to keep refugees and the refugee crisis from its borders.
"The EU has made a huge investment in externalizing their own borders into North Africa. The idea is if you can't set foot in the EU, then you can't apply for asylum there."
A version of this tactic is happening in the United States and Mexico.
"For audiences who feel that this is really far away, the Trump administration is following step by step the same playbook in pushing back the U.S. borders into Mexico, in an attempt to curtail the flow of Central and South Americans who are coming to the U.S. and applying for asylum."
The Burning: The Untold Story of Africa's Refugee Crisis makes its Southern California theatrical debut Tuesday night (June 23), at the TCL Chinese Theater complex in Hollywood as part of the Dances With Films Film Festival. It will also be shown this August on PBS.
