Midnight Traveler: Impactful, Meaningful, and Moving.
Columbia’s yearly film festival, True/False focuses on the art of documentary making, with a theme each year. This year, their 16th year, was focused on strangers and our relationships with others. A good portion of the films focused on immigrants and their stories. With this being a hot button topic in the last few years it seemed fitting that a lot of the films focused on all aspects of this kind of life. To create this kind of environment, I think that there is a level of empathy and accepting that the festival creators have always wanted to foster in one way or another. Being immersed in someone’s story in a way that we’re familiar with is really important for us to become more empathetic beings. The film Midnight Traveler is a film that really asks us to be more sympathetic to those that risk it all for a better life.
The film was created by Hassan Fazili and his wife Fatima as they leave Afghanistan and travel to Europe after a threat was put out by the Taliban. They film each other and their two daughters, Nargris and Zahra, on three cell phones. This is important because they couldn’t possibly carry any kind of camera equipment if they wanted to be able to get all the way into Europe comfortably light. They spent days walking and hiding. They were arrested, put into refugee camps, and risked their lives to create a better world for themselves. The only way they could have sought asylum in the EU was by entering illegally, and they were lucky enough to make it all the way there.
Because both Hassan and Fatima were filmmakers before this, they work their cameras wonderfully well, capturing the danger they’re in discreetly and vividly. Vox writer, Cary Littlejohn, writes that it is a wonderful way for us to become immersed in a world we may never experience. The film produced is in a style a lot of us are familiar with, vlogging, and while they’re not showing us their day out shopping at the mall or just showing their everyday life at home, we’re are familiar with the angles they take. They create an intimate space we’re all too familiar with.
One of the best parts of this film at True/False this year was that it was the recipient the True Life Fund, where of all the proceed from the showing of the film and donations go toward the family. The money is going to support the family in Germany as they work to create a new home there for their daughters and rebuild their lives in a safe and secure place. At the end of the showing, we were contacted via video with Hassan to express gratitude towards him and his family for sharing their story, as well as understanding where they are now and what they need to do to successfully resettle in Germany. This fund is one of the best parts of the festival and it couldn’t be going to better subject. They went through a lot in three years and it will help them put the final nail in their asylum and a new life.
After viewing this film, I wanted to know what I could do to help others in the Fazili family’s situation, and I found that there is a local foundation in Columbia, City of Refuge, that helps resettle refugees in mid-MO. I have started to look into helping out with them or volunteering. It has also inspired my boyfriend to actually start creating short films, something he’s always wanted to do. He said that if the family could have created such a moving and inspiring full-length film on just their cellphones and in that kind of situation, there really isn’t anything stopping him from creating. This family and all of True/False are really inspirational for anyone interested in documentary making, since it carries such an important impact to see something we may never experience in our lives.
