The Toronto International Film Festival just did an audience survey with such crucial but challenging questions as
“When did you feel most connected to a film experience?” I immediately thought of something every programmer and presenter --and probably filmmaker-- dreams of that happened during our last
GOETHE FILMS: PEAK German Docs series.
For days and weeks after our screening of LAND IN SIGHT, which followed three refugees as they were trying to settle in Germany, audience members kept asking “What happened to Brian?” Brian is an incredibly smart and sensitive young Ghanaian whose asylum claim was rejected at the end of the film --meaning a temporary stay in Germany but no work permit and a looming deportation. Viewers were clearly shaken by that non-ending and non-resolution. So
I went back to the two directors Judith Keil and Antje Kruska for an update, four years later, this is what they sent:
"As for Brian’s development, we know that he has been in relatively regular, friendly contact with his social worker seen in the film. She has also informed us what has happened in his life approximately one year after the release of the film.
He met a woman of African origin with a German passport in Berlin and together they had a child. When the baby was a couple months old, they got married. So, Brian now has legal residence status and is permitted to work. As far as we know, he is active in the fashion sector and is working with Italian fashion people. The last we hear, he is doing well.
In Farid’s case (an Iranian who was granted asylum at the end of the film), after the film was completed it took a very long time before his wife and son were permitted to join him in Germany. Then, they had some difficulties living together at first. His wife and son returned to Iran after a few months because his wife could not imagine living in Germany – everything was too foreign to her. Yet after another year living apart, she made a second attempt and moved back with their son. The couple attended integration courses and the family is now living in Berlin-Marzahn. The last news we had one year ago was that Farid was looking for a job and things remain difficult for him. His wife has come to accept life in Germany, but is not very happy.
A little while after the film was released Abdul, the Yemini ex-army colonel, had to move out of his own apartment and back into the refugee home. He only endured it for a few months, then he suddenly disappeared and no one knows where he is.'
by
Jutta Brendemühl
image: LAND IN SIGHT: Brian, courtesy ZOOM MEDIENFABRIK GmbH
