SCREENINGS

SYNOPSIS

What happens when your future depends on telling your own life story? Four rejected asylum seekers relive the hearing on their reasons for fleeing their homelands thus shedding light on the core of the asylum procedure. Those who succeed in recounting the personal danger in their home country “credibly and without contradiction” have a better chance of receiving asylum. Will the interviewees be able to describe their memories of traumatic experiences in such a way that they meet the official criteria this time?

A simple swapping of roles reverses the balance of power for once, with SEM interviewers answering the questions of the asylum seekers. In this way, THE HEARING not only provides insight into the crucial yet sensitive hearing, but also questions the asylum procedure itself.

prestented by:

Lisa Gerig

Biography

Lisa Gerig, born 1990, studied film in Zurich and Geneva, majoring in editing. Her thesis film ZAUNGESPRÄCHE is a radically subjective look at the situation of people held in Zurich’s deportation detention center and won several awards. From 2018 to 2023, she studied Documentary Film Directing at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, where she won the Promotional Award for Young Students in 2019. Today she works as a freelance filmmaker in Zurich and Cologne.

Filmography

Zaungespräche (2015), À Deux (2019) Die Anhörung (2023)