Same, Same but Different: Mindshakes Presents Refugee Story Through the Hollywood-Lens
Mindshakes and documentary filmmaker Rob Key (1985, UK) present the story of Teklit (1987, Sudan) – a refugee on Malta – and portray his tale through three different lenses. Teklit’s journey is being told by complementing his story with fictive elements. Through this, Rob Key questions the western view of the refugee crisis and its portrayal in the media.
Refugees entering Europe, dominate the western media, newspapers and bulletins for months. Does the dominant representation of the issue reinforce the fears of the European citizens? Are the local protests against the introduction of asylum seekers centres a direct consequence of the current media coverage? How does the fear of the concerned citizens weight against the death of thousands of refugees? How big is the influence of western media on the climate of fear? In ‘Same, Same but Different’ Mindshakes uses a visual language that brings the usual ‘outsider’ (the refugee) into the position of ‘insider’; the classical movie hero. According to Key the viewer is hardly ever moved by the refugees dying on a daily base, since the media doesn't portrait the group of refugees as ‘one of us’. By mixing documentary elements with fictive Hollywood scenes and the making-of of this tale, Key shows what different story telling can do with the emotions of the viewer.
Rob Key was born in middle England in the Eighties. A recovering philosopher and former scholar of psychoanalysis, Rob recently finished the DocNomads master course in documentary film directing. Balancing an inexplicable desire for change alongside a compulsion to entertain. Rob curates films that make the everyday quizzical and the complicated clear.
Mindshakes is the new Dutch media brand of Mediahuis Nederland. The site is all about stories that stick, because of their form, as well as their content. Mindshakes features text and photography, it also publishes documentaries, films, infographics, quote cards and cartoons. Everything is being told and shown by a new generation of talented journalists, filmmakers, writers, photographers and illustrators.
