A co-organisation of Maastricht Debates with Lumière Cinema, the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance and Studium Generale.

Download detailed programme and background information

Migration within and into the European Union is a topic which raises large attention in the media and in the political arena. Whilst the European economy needs an increasing number of highly skilled foreign migrants, the attitude towards economic refugees has become progressively more strict. This is reflected in the development of the so-called Blue Card and police patrols at the borders of Mediterranean countries.

In Europe, migration patterns have changed due to the recent EU enlargements. More and more migrant workers from Eastern Europe travel to the West, out of which also Roma and Sinti. Adding to that, scandals in the media, human trafficking, criminality, integration of minorities and cultural differences have resulted in populist discourse on migration. Clearly there are missing points in European policy areas dealing with migrants, and in lawmaking at various levels. How to accommodate freedom of movement inside the EU on the one hand, whilst ensuring security and safety of its citizens, on the other?

This mixture of issues on freedom of movement and migration within and into the EU is covered in a unique festival showing movies and documentaries, followed by discussions and keynote speeches, and also music.

Monday November 17 - 7.30 PM

Introduction of the festival

Featuring 'It's a free world'

Tuesday November 18 - 7.30 PM

2 parallel programmes:

* A debate and a documentary on European Migration Policy, featuring 'Dijarama'

* A debate and a documentary on Human Trafficking, featuring 'True North'

Wednesday November 19 - 7.30 PM

2 parallel programmes:

* A keynote and a movie on Migration from Eastern Europe, featuring 'Time of the Gypsies'

* A debate and a documentary on Cultural Identity, featuring 'All white in Barking'

Further reading
Documents by the European Institutions on migration
Statement on Migration and Development (Worldconnectors, February 2008)

It’s a free world
By Ken Loach
2007, 96 min.
The ironically titled movie, screened in competition at the Venice Film Festival, focuses on a spirited young English woman who becomes inured to the fate of immigrants while working for a big recruiting agency. Battered by her own work experience, she starts up a new agency, but the opportunity to make big money by exploiting the desperate and vulnerable leads to corruption and violence. More... See trailer.

Dijarama
By Gus Barrera
2007, 75 min.
In 2004, a Spanish team made a documentary in which economic refugees from West Africa  reported on their life threatening journey to an illegal stay in Europe. Dijarama (‘Welcome’) is however about the viewing of this documentary in Guinea to warn people for eventual disappointments. A so-called anti-Europe campaign. The reactions by the people in Guinea differ. Sema, taxi driver, keeps dreaming about the ‘El Dorado’ of Europe, regardless the plea made by the tour guide to stay in his beautiful country. Dijarama is a colourful homage to the people and culture of Guinea in which at the same time common Africans are critical about the distribution of wealth and the failure of leadership in Africa and Europe. 

True North
By Steven Hudson
2006, 96 min.
The skipper of the Scottish trawler PD-100 has worked for more than thirty-two years to buy his fishing vessel but is bankrupt and near to lose his ship to the bank. While in the port of Ostend, Belgium, his first mate and son Sean accepts a lot of money to smuggle Chinese illegal immigrants to Scotland to keep the trawler with his father. The crewman Riley helps him in the scheme, and they hide the group in a store below the boatswain store. However, a Chinese teenagers hides in the engine room, stealing food and leaving money in the galley. The cook, who is a little slow and has issues with sex, finds the stowaway and helps her. Sean decides to stay longer in the North Sea to get catch and avoid problems with customs, leaving the immigrants in the most subhuman conditions. When one of the Chinese dies, despair is triggered leading the crew to tragic actions. See trailer.

Time of the Gypsies
By Emir Kusturica
1989, 142 min.

Filmed in Sarajevo, this is a film everyone should see .... twice. The story centers around Perhan, a young Romany Gypsy who has inherited telekinetic powers. He lives with his grandmother, a gifted healer; his little sister, who is physically handicapped; and his uncle, a ne'er-do-well gambler, hopelessly in debt to the local thugs. They live together in a little house on the outskirts of Sarajevo, surrounded by the Gypsy community that is the focus of their lives.

Perhan is tricked into traveling to Italy with Ahmed, a local Gypsy lord. Ahmed traffics in everything from selling babies to pimping. Perhan is forced to lead the life of a petty criminal while, back in Sarajevo, his grandmother has promised to look after Azra, his fiancée. Ahmed promises that he's sending money back to Sarajevo each month, to be put towards the costs of the new home he is having built for Perhan and his fiancée. When Perhan returns home, he discovers that there is no house being built, that his fiancée is now pregnant with what may be his uncle's baby, and, most tragically, that his little sister, thought to be receiving medical treatment, has in fact been forced to beg in the streets to survive. These revelations change Perhan's heart irrecoverably and he sets out on a mission to destroy Ahmed and find his sister.

The rare glimpse into the Romany Gypsy culture is enough to make this film interesting, but the story is so compelling, the cinematography so excellent and the characters so fascinating, that it takes on the proportions of a major work of film. Emir Kusturica won the award for Best Director from the Cannes Film Festival for Time of the Gypsies (1989). See trailer.

All white in Barking
By Marc Isaacs
2007, 73 min.
Filmmaker Marc Isaacs' funny and illuminating documentary gives a voice to people who feel that they are at the sharp end of multicultural Britain. Take a trip to the London borough of Barking and Dagenham, an area which has some of the highest levels of immigration in the country and where residents are struggling to come to terms with their new arrivals. There we meet life-long residents Susan and Jeff who are encouraged to put their assumptions aside to welcome their new Nigerian neighbours. There's also Dave whose anger at the influx of immigrants has led him to campaign for the far right British Nationalist Party - despite both his daughters having non-white boyfriends. Meanwhile, Holocaust survivor Monty and African Betty form a close friendship, despite disapproving stares. In this Storyville, Isaacs' gentle probing of these very different characters helps to paint a vivid picture of the attitudes and preconceptions at the heart of Modern Britain. See trailer