Those Who Feel the Fire Burning
DIRECTOR: Morgan Knibbe COUNTRY: Netherlands YEAR: 2014 LANGUAGE(S): Tigrinya, Italian, Greek, Arabic, Bengali, Farsi, Wolof SUBTITLES: English RUNNING TIME: 74 min
SECTION: International Forum 2015
SYNOPSIS
How horrifying: In search of paradise, you get into a dilapidated boat. The seas are stormy, you’re too close to the edge and you fall overboard. You swim for a few hours but you’ve got no chance against the choppy waters. As we know, this is how the desperate attempt to get to Europe ends all too frequently. In Morgan Knibbe’s docufiction the drowned refugee turns into a spirit who goes in search of paradise but soon realizes that Europe and its treatment of refugees is more like hell.
How can a spirit be depicted in film? In THOSE WHO FEEL THE FIRE BURNING, the camera is the spirit. It flies over Europe, floats over cities, can go everywhere unseen. Poetic, sometimes surreal, sometimes very concrete, it captures impressions and situations that show the lives of refugees in Europe: Refugees waiting and waiting in temporary accommodation, others climbing onto boats, others mourning their drowned relatives, one who is a drug addicted and also a mother. The tense relationship between image and reality, freedom and hopelessness, spirit and human creates a gravitational pull and asks the question of whether Europe’s treatment of refugees is correct and about humanity itself on this happy continent.
An incredibly powerful visual horror trip through Europe from the perspective of a drowned refugee.
MORGAN KNIBBE
Morgan Knibbe graduated from the Dutch Film Academy in 2012 with his short experimental film A TWIST IN THE FABRIC OF SPACE. The film was selected for IDFA and won a Wildcard from the Netherlands Film Fund, which gives young directors the opportunity to develop their own signature. Knibbe also directed the short film SHIPWRECK which was awarded a Silver Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival 2014. THOSE WHO FEEL THE FIRE BURNING is Morgan’s first feature length documentary.
FILMOGRAPHY
A Twist in the Fabric of Space (2012), Shipwreck (2014), Those Who Feel the Fire Burning (2014)
SCRIPT: Morgan Knibbe PRODUCERS: Katja Draaijer, Frank Hoeve CAMERA: Morgan Knibbe EDITOR: Xander Nijsten MUSIC: Carlos Dalla-Fiore, Juho Nurmela
PRODUCTION: Katja Draaijer, Baldr Film WORLD SALES: Baldr Film