Migration and Art: Screening and discussion with Behrouz Boochani and Arash Kamali Sarvestani

In collaboration with the Centre for Advanced Migration Studies (AMIS), Cinemateket arranges a screening of the film ‘Chauka, Please Tell us the Time’ (2017). The film is directed and produced by Iranian-Kurdish award-winning author Behrouz Boochani, who gained international recognition for his book ‘No Friend but the Mountains’, and Iranian-Dutch filmmaker Arash Kamali Sarvestani.

The screening will be followed by a conversation with Behrouz Boochani and Arash Kamali Sarvestani, facilitated by Cecilie Odgaard Jakobsen and Annika Lindberg (AMIS), on film as a medium for bridging art and activism – and perhaps also as a therapeutic practice.

The introduction and discussion of the film lasts for about 80 minutes. The film runs for 90 minutes.

Abstract of the film

‘Chauka’ builds upon Behrouz Boochani’s own experience as a refugee imprisoned for six years in Australia’s notorious migrant prison on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. The film is shot by Boochani, who secretly used his smartphone to document and distribute rare insights into everyday life behind the securitized prison gates for the hundreds of refugees held in indefinite detention. It documents and presents in a unique, poetic form the torturous violence that Australia’s ‘Pacific Solution’ is based upon.

Chauka is a bird of particular symbolic importance for the indigenous population, whose song marks the passing of time; yet, it is also the name of an infamous solitary prison cell, located inside Manus prison, where time seems to be suspended.

Since the film was produced, Manus prison has been shut down after having been deemed unlawful. Yet, the offshore detention model still persists – and has gained renewed political actuality when Denmark and the United Kingdom recently announced their intention to find ways to externalize asylum processing outside their borders. The film’s originality lies both in its form, its process, and its content; and it retains its artistic and political actuality.

Netherlands, Australia, 2017

90 minutes

English subtitles

Practical information

Title: Chauka, Please Tell us the Time’ (2017)

Where: The film will be screened at Cinemateket, Gothersgade 55

Time: Monday 6 September at 21:00

Ticket price: DKK 85 (DKK 55 for members of Cinemateket)

Order tickets at tel. 33 74 34 12 or at the website of the Danish Film Institute