A devastating, breathtaking documentary about the biggest movement of refugees in Europe since the second world war, by those who are actually living it ‘I’m not scared,” says 11-year-old Isra’a, a charismatic Syrian girl with a heartbreaking capacity to smile through any horror. It is the night before Isra’a and her family will travel by dinghy from Izmir in Turkey, where 800,000 refugees entered Europe in 2015, to Greece. The same route that Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy who washed up dead on a beach in Turkey took last year. The dread is sickening. Isra’a’s parents and grandparents are terrified. “We decided to take the dinghy but my heart doesn’t feel good about it,” Isra’a’s father, Tarek, says, wiping his eyes. The children are resigned. “Nothing is scary,” one boy says. “In Syria the shells were dropping on us and we got used to it. How could we be scared by some waves?” “At least we sleep for ever in the grave,” Isra’a points out. Then she smiles. Within minutes of watching EXODUS: OUR JOURNEY TO EUROPE (BBC 2, 9pm), I was weeping. I did not stop until the credits rolled. I have not stopped thinking about it since. Exodus was shot partly by BBC crews and partly by refugees who were given camera phones to secretly film their epic journeys to Europe. They capture every intimate detail from the grim negotiations with smugglers to the nightmare we have all imagined, and which continues to play out, of the boat overcrowded with men, women and children capsizing in the sea. Shown in three parts, this is ambitious, necessary, and devastating documentary-making. All you want is for these people to survive. Continue reading...
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