Within the second edition of the Global Migration Film Festival, which took place globally in the period between 5th and 18th December 2017 to honor the International Migrants Day, the IOM Mission in Slovenia organized a film event in the Trubar Literature House in Ljubljana on 14 December 2017.

Organized by IOM, the UN Migration Agency, the Festival spanned over 13 days with 30 specially selected films being screened in over 100 different countries across a range of different venues from displacement camps and migrant centres to university campuses and arthouse cinemas with the sponsorship of the IOM Development Fund, the youth video festival Plural+ and the UN campaign TOGETHER. From Guyana in South America to South Sudan in East Africa (and many other places in between) filmmakers from around the globe showcased their skills as cinematographers during the Film Festival.

In Ljubljana three documentary films were shown to a diverse audience. The short video »Recognizing Talent: Stories From Refugees and Their Employers«, produced within the IOM project From Skills2Work presented successful employment stories of refugees in the Netherlands with an emphasis on the importance of employers recognizing the right potential in each individual (you can see the film here). »This is Not Paradise« followed with depicting hardships of many of the estimated 250.000 migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, where several organisations and the civil society are awakening to empower the exploited workers. How migrants can give back to their homelands was well portrayed in the closing documentary »When I'm There«, which showed community projects of three Moroccans living in the Netherlands.

In the accompanying programme Samar Zughool opened the event with a short performance, called »Identity« and the dancing group Haifa presented the Arab folk dance dabke with two songs.

“Films have the power to illluminate the different facets of life. They can inform, inspire, transform and promote inclusion,” said Laura Thompson, UN Migration Agency Deputy Director General, at the closing event of the festival in Geneva. “Films truly build deeper empathy for migrants and a better understanding of their realities, needs, perspectives and capacities. Our Film Festival uses film as educational tools to influence attitudes towards migrants in a positive way, highlighting their overall contributions to society and the struggles that many face in today’s world on the move,” said Ambassador Thompson.