Refugees: who needs them?
A very touching view on the lives of refugees in The Netherlands, brought with a bit of humor. In a time where Europe is looking for ways to close its borders for immigrants and refugees, while on the other hand the European Commission admits it needs at least 50 million immigrants as a continent to survive in the future on economic level. This documentary shows a year out of the lives of four refugees that did make it to Holland. Fathi: an activist who is fled from Khadaffiâs regime Fasil: a journalist from Ethiopia, who is sentenced to life imprisonment for commiting fraud during government elections in 2005. Li Zhu: a Falun Gong Buddhist, sentenced to life imprisonment for demonstrating against the government. Renuka: a young woman from Bhutan, one of the 100,000 Nepaleses that are evicted from Bhutan. All of them try to find their way to create a new life in The Netherlands, in a new society, with a new language and traditions. The buddhist is placed in a traditional christian village, the Libyan in a room in a asylum center that looks more like a prison. They all try to be as Dutch as possible; from Queensday to the Keukenhof, from an exhibition of the painter Vermeer to going to the Anne Frank House. Theyâre also confronting politicians, historians and anti-refugee groups, looking for answers: is Europe going to interfere in the regimes that repressed them? What is the value of refugees for Europe? The refugees in the documentary are struggeling with the new adjustments in their lifes: Renuka is going to university to help her parents, Li Zhu is trying to confront the Vice President of the European Union with the genocide in China, Fathi wants to become the Vice President of the World Amazigh Congress and Fasil is starting his own television station from Amsterdam to Ethiopia to be able to broadcast the only uncensored news in the country.