Directors: Aylin Basaran, Ebs Eberl
Germany/2014/ 75min
In the centre of the 75-minute documentary film Being.Here are the fates of people who have lived “here” and have been deported. Their stories are told in a dialogue with those friends and relatives who have remained “here”. The settings for Being.Here are, among other places, Sokodé, the second largest city in Togo, and resistance stronghold against the repressive regime of President Gnassingbé Eyadéma in the 1990s. The 20-million-inhabitant metropolis of Lagos, from the perspective of a backroom, a football pitch and a car journey. A refugee protest camp in Hamburg. Vienna, Ottakring, Favoriten, Westbahnhof, a sports complex. Among the protagonists: a nurse and her son. A football player. A former chauffer, who would like to be a bus driver. The owner of a small dressmaking business. A right-to-stay activist and family breadwinner. A popular party DJ.
Aylin Basaran and Hans-Georg Eberl interviewed them and filmed their daily lives for a month. The stories tell of traumatic, violent experiences and relationships torn apart, of lost hopes and rights. Of administrative racism and persecution by demoralisation “here” and political persecution “there”, but also of resistance and solidarity. And of trying not to lose heart over the enforced disruption in their own lives. The deportation of people from Europe is a daily institutional practice. Being.Here will be a platform for those voices which were part of European society, but which have been rendered silent by violent expulsion. The film does not claim any documentary neutrality, but is committed to a partisan perspective of solidarity, without losing sight of the various facets of the subjective experiences and coping strategies of its protagonists.