Short film asks: Do we act, or turn away?
Times documentary perfectly summarizes the moral question we all face
BERLIN
“When I look into their eyes, I see their memories of war. They come from war. They escape the bombs that fall on their homes. And we see these families … in the Greek sea. Losing each other in the Greek sea. In the sea of a peaceful country. Because of the way they have to cross.”
So reflects Kyriakos, a Coast Guard captain on the Greek Island Lesbos in a short documentary by Daphne Matziaraki that The New York Times recently published. The film follows Kyriakos (we only learn his name indirectly) over the course of one day in October 2015, when some of the greatest numbers of asylum seekers were trying to reach Lesbos’ shores. The idyllic isle had become one of the main landing points for asylum seekers crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Europe. The film — which I highly recommend everyone watches — weaves together scenes of dramatic rescue missions with commentary from the captain, making for a powerful, yet tragic day-in-the-life story from our world’s migration crisis.
The raw emotion of the film is perhaps its strongest witness. People grasp onto the coast guard’s boat so as to not fall back into the sea. Rescuers frantically slap a baby to try to get water out of its lungs. Kyriakos, the film’s subdued hero, is steadfast in his efforts to save as many lives as possible despite the sheer number of rescue missions needed. He’s also fighting against the smugglers who he says bribed asylum seekers to make the crossing on this particularly windy October day. Kyriakos grapples with the grim reality that even after the asylum seekers make it safely on land, he cannot guarantee them their futures will be without further pain.
But also there are small moments of relief after refugees have been rescued. Those moments when one can respond with only tears or laughter — and there are passing glimpses of smiles.
Mostly, we see humans staying alive despite the odds. Humans whose identities are so often whittled down to one label, refugee, with all of the baggage that comes with it. And we see a captain whose life changed when hundreds of thousands began taking flimsy boats across the Aegean Sea for the chance to live in Europe.
In a short article that was published along with her documentary, Matziaraki, the filmmaker, poses a question to us all:
We don’t all confront the refugee crisis with the same immediacy as the coast guard captain portrayed here. But as our world becomes more interconnected, and more violent, we do all face a choice — would we act as he does, to save the life of stranger? Or would we turn away?
Laura Kasinof is a Latterly contributing writer covering migration and refugees on a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
