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Asylum Seeker Narratives

(Status : Public)
Coordinated by AustLit UQ Team
  • 4us: Young People with Refugee Backgrounds Living in Australia [short films]

    4us is a collection of four short films created in collaboration with young people with refugee backgrounds living in Melbourne, Australia.

    Contents:

    (1) See Through Me: Discrimination through the eyes of ten young Somali-Australians (2007);

    (2) Crazy: The everyday experiences of Sudanese-Australian young women (2007);

    (3) Home: An exploratory journey with young Somali-Australians (2008);

    (4) Finding Light: Reflections of recently arrived Afghan boys living in Australia (2008).

    Find library holdings here.

  • All God's Beggars [Educational Video]

    A video to assist students to understand some of the issues regarding asylum seekers and the humanitarian assistance given by individuals and organisations.

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  • About Woomera / Four Corners [TV]

    Report re former employees of Woomera Detention Centre exposes how detention centre not only traumatised asylum seekers detained there but people who worked at centre.

    Find library holdings here.

  • The Artist, the QC and the Refugee [film]

    Corporate lawyer, Julian Burnside, his artist wife Kate Durham and Australia's most famous refugee, Aladdin Sasalem, are brought together in a political struggle against Australia's treatment of refugees.

    Find library holdings here.

  • Asylum Seekers : Detainee Riots / Lateline [TV]

    The distress and anguish of asylum seekers is superbly used to attack the government's policy of detention of illegal aliens. The report is based on a few minutes of privately owned video, shot on the 1st June 2001 at the Curtin Detention Centre. Includes an interview with an Iranian refugee Farshid Kheirollahpoor and a brief excerpt from a press conference given by Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock.

    Find library holdings here.

  • Beyond Differences [film]

    Beyond differences follows the journeys of young migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from their homeland to the new lives they are creating for themselves in Australia. Members of the Western Young People's Independent Network (WYPIN), describes the loneliness, difficulties and adaption required in finding their place in multicultural Australia.

    Find library holdings here.

  • The Boy on Christmas Island - Background Briefing - ABC Radio National [Radio Program]

    Radio program on ABC Radio National: Orphaned in the wild sea storm, nine-year-old Iranian boy Seena Akhlaqi has become the political pawn of 'stop the boats'. Why was a traumatised boy left in an overcrowded detention centre, with substandard care, for over two months? Was it a bungle or a cover-up?

    View here [audio and transcript].

  • Falling for Sahara

    'Three young African refugees in Melbourne's inner-west find that love is never simple - especially when they all have eyes for the same girl. Beniam, Ramsy and MJ are best friends. Hanging out at the Flemington housing commission flats they call home, the three Africans share a tight bond and a love of footy. But with the arrival of Sahara - smart, beautiful and AFL-mad - the three friends suddenly find themselves competing for the same girl. ' (Melbourne International Film Festival website)

    (...more)
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  • Four Corners: About Woomera [TV]

    To its backers, Woomera detention centre played a humane yet crucial role in housing the growing numbers of boat people landing on Australia's shores. To its critics, this heavily guarded cluster of buildings, ringed by red desert and razor wire, represented the dead heart of asylum-seeker policy. Woomera opened for business less than four years ago. Built for 400 people, it soon housed more than 1400. It became notorious for riots, protests and breakouts by desperate detainees. There were claims that mental illness and self-harm were rife. The allegations mounted... TV cameras recorded protests at the perimeter fence. Press reports warned of detainees' declining health and morale. Yet when Woomera was quietly placed in mothballs last month, its full story remained to be told. Four Corners reporter Debbie Whitmont has now penetrated the obsessive secrecy that shrouded Woomera. Her report graphically exposes how this detention facility traumatised not only detainees, but also ordinary Australians who worked there. It is a report that will shock viewers.

    'About Woomera' was first broadcast on ABC TV on Monday 19 May 2003.

    View here.

  • Four Corners: Asylum [TV]

    On average, asylum seekers remain in detention for around a year, but that figure hides a group of people who remain locked away for much longer periods of time. Just over a year ago, the Federal Government announced it would begin releasing children into the community to minimise the harm caused by their incarceration. At the same time, thousands of adults remain locked away in detention centres remote from the rest of the world - a situation that's concerning to many healthcare professionals. Says one: 'What we've observed is people who seem to be in detention for periods of 12 to 15 months onwards, start to develop very significant mental health problems and certainly people who've been in detention 15, 18 plus months have very high rates of psychiatric morbidity.' Despite a massive debate about Australia's asylum seeker policy, few people know what life is really like inside detention camps. According to refugee activists, the reason is simple - the Government does not want the broader population seeing the conditions inside and the impact the camps are having on the detainees.

    Now, reporter Sarah Ferguson has gathered together startling evidence exposing the truth about life inside; how medication prescribed to asylum seekers is being misused and how many cases of self harm are going unreported, giving the public a false impression of conditions behind the wire. In the wake of the Government's failure to engineer an offshore processing solution, and with detention centres close to capacity, the Government is now exploring alternatives, such as community detention. But that does not help the people who remain locked inside the camps.

    With a growing body of evidence that shows detention can cause long term psychological harm, what are the consequences of the current policy? Are people being damaged for life? If they are finally given refugee status, will they ever be able to participate fully in community life - being trained, winning jobs and raising families - or will they simply become a problem that future generations will have to deal with?

    View here.

  • Four Corners: The Inside Story [TV]

    Interviews with escaped detainees from Villawood Detention Centre:

    A few days after the escapes, Four Corners received a phone call. Despite the risks, some of the escapees wanted to tell their story. We were given a time and a meeting place. There, we met a guide who took us to two other places to make sure we weren't being followed. Then with hats and coats covering our eyes to make sure we didn't know where we were, we were taken to a house in suburban Sydney. We don't know where it was or who lived there. After a while, two men arrived to talk to us.

    View here.

  • Four Corners: The Guards' Story [TV]

    Report re former guards From Woomera & Baxter Immigration Detention Centres reveal the horrors they experienced working in overcrowded detention centres trying to keep order among traumatised asylum seekers.

    View here.

  • Go Back To Where You Came From on SBS [TV Series]

    Six ordinary Australians agree to challenge their preconceived notions about refugees and asylum seekers by embarking on a confronting 25-day journey. Tracing in reverse the journeys that refugees have taken to reach Australia, they travel to some of the most dangerous and desperate corners of the world, with no idea what is in store for them along the way. Deprived of their wallets, phones and passports, they board a leaky refugee boat, are rescued mid-ocean, experience immigration raids in Malaysia, live in a Kenyan refugee camp and visit slums in Jordan before ultimately making it to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq, protected by UN Peacekeepers and the US military. For some of them its their first time abroad. For all of them, its an epic journey and the most challenging experience of their lives.

    View here.

  • HOPE [Film about the Siev-X] Official Website

    Four hundred asylum seekers were pitched into the sea when their 'people-smuggling' boat from Indonesia sank on its way to Australia in 2001. Three hundred and fifty three people drowned. Only seven survivors made it to Australia. Amal Basry, who had fled Iraq, was one of those survivors. She spent 22 hours in the ocean hanging on to a floating corpse, convinced that her son was dead and she was the only person left alive. Controversy surrounded the sinking of the boat, which became known as the SIEV X (Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel Unknown). In public, Amal became an advocate for the survivors. In private, she fought to reunite her fragmented family, cope with the personal consequences of the disaster and return to Indonesia to 'find what I lost in the ocean'. Amal loved movies and had always dreamed of being in a film of her own. Documentary maker Steve Thomas wanted to record her life story. So they made a deal. And having embarked on this journey, they were determined to see it through to the end.. There are many twists and turns in the story as 'Hope' unfolds. We'd rather not give these away because we don't want to spoil the viewer's own journey. Suffice to say that ultimately 'Hope' is an inspiring story. A film that works on many levels, Hope is a universal tale of family, migration and the search for 'a better life'.

    View here.

  • How Far We've Come [SBS Website]

    SBS Australia: This website explores the lives of refugees in Australia over time - they first told us their stories up to 25 years ago. Now we tracked them down to find out what happened since.

    WHAT DO WE MEAN BY REFUGEE: The participants in these stories have arrived in Australia in a range of circumstances. Most have been accepted into Australia's refugee or humanitarian programs, but others found entry via a different migration category. Some were urgently fleeing the real possibility of death or imprisonment. Others found a sense of security and freedom here that they could not enjoy in their original country, and stayed to make Australia their new home. All of them self identify as refugees in their own ways.

    View here.

  • If this is a Man? Men and Mandatory Detention - All In The Mind - ABC Radio National [Radio Program]

    The majority of asylum seekers held in Australia's immigration detention centres are men. Detention centres impose severe restrictions and for men long-term incarceration can be devastating. Aamer Sultan is a doctor and refugee and he believes the three years he spent in detention changed the core of his identity. The director of the NSW Institute of Psychiatry, Dr Louise Newman, assists some of those critically disturbed by their incarceration. Together they offer insight into the impact of long-term detention on men.

    View here.

  • In Detention: Locking Up Asylum Seekers [Educational Video]

    This program looks at the recent turmoil for Australian asylum seekers. It includes first-hand interviews with a range of government representatives, refugee advocates and others closely affiliated with International Affairs. Also looks at life in detention centres and different views on the actions of the Australian Government.

    Find library holdings here.

  • Inside Nauru: Pacific Despair [TV]

    Reveals poor conditions and unrest in detention centres on Nauru to which asylum seekers were diverted from Australia, as part of Prime Minister John Howard's so-called Pacific Solution, following the 2001 Tampa incident.

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  • Letters to Ali

    An 'average' Australian family decides to help in a small way by writing to Ali, a fifteen-year-old Afghan boy detained at Port Hedland, unaccompanied by any relatives. This letter would prove to be the catalyst for a three-year on-going battle with Australian authorities to get Ali, then a minor, out of detention. Filmmakers Clara Law and Eddie Fong contacted Trish in September 2002 after reading the newspaper story and decided to make a film about Ali's case. (...more)
    See full AustLit entry
  • Letter to Clara: Cinematic Epistolarity and the Outsider's Vision in 'Letters to Ali' [Article about the film]

    Abstract:

    Clara Law's Letters to Ali (2004) relates the story of a 15-year old Afghan boy (his real name is not disclosed), who at the time of filming was kept at the Port Hedland detention centre in northern Western Australia, having entered Australia by sea without a visa. The film, however, focuses primarily on an Australian medical doctor, Trish Kerbi, and her family, as they journey by car, pulling a small trailer with tents, luggage and provisions, all the way from Melbourne to Port Hedland. Their purpose is to meet Ali, with whom they have been communicating by letter and telephone. Trish and her husband, Ryan, are also making efforts to have Ali released from the detention centre and adopted into their family.

    Find library holdings here.

  • Marking Time [Telemovie]

    Dramatises the issues relating to Australian attitudes to asylum seekers through the romance between an Australian boy and a young Afghani refugee.

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  • Molly and Mobarak [Documentary Film]

    Mobarak Tahiri, a young refugee from Afghanistan, receives a three-year Temporary Protection Visa for Australia, and with other refugees obtains employment in an abattoir in Young. He learns English and falls in love with an Australian girl, but his visa is due to expire.

    Find library holdings here.

  • Nauru Calling - Radio Eye - ABC Radio National [Radio Program]

    By November 2001, more than 1,000 asylum seekers were in detention in the 'Topside' and 'Stateside' camps on the island of Nauru. Many of the detainees were to remain in these hastily constructed detention centres for more than 2 years, and around 300 are still held in less than ideal conditions in these camps.

    While the plight of asylum seekers in detention has been widely debated in Australia, the ways in which their stories touch the lives of ordinary Australians has rarely been told. When writer and producer Julie Browning set out to investigate the responses of Australians to the fate of asylum seekers, she discovered that it was not simply a question of professional activists, but of ordinary people whose lives have been transformed by their responses to the plight of the detainees.

    In this documentary we follow the correspondence between detainees on Nauru and an Australian woman whose life has been turned upside down in her desire to assist the people who she came to know only through their letters.

    View here.

  • Saved

    'This premiere television movie stars Claudia Karvan as a woman who becomes the advocate for a young Iranian detainee, and develops a complex relationship with him that threatens her marriage.

    'Julia is a young mother trying to come to terms with the loss of her new born to SIDS. While her husband Peter throws himself into work to cope with the tragedy, Julia becomes more despairing and isolated from the world around her. Recognising that she needs a distraction, her sister-in-law suggests that Julia accompany her to the Detention Centre where she volunteers as an advocate for detainees.

    (...more)
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  • Tales from a Suitcase

    image of person or book cover
    Screen cap from opening credits

    'I am homeless, I am without a country, without a place, without a family. I'm nothing.'

    Since the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, millions of Afghan people have died and millions have fled. The Taliban promised hope, but brought violent oppression and a regime of discipline that saw more people escaping to save their lives. A tiny proportion of these people have found themselves in Australia and these are some of their stories.

    (...more)
    See full AustLit entry
  • Villawood Mums [SHORT FILM] – CuriousWorks :The Stories Project

    There are a few things that separate the arrival of Maria and Zahoor at Villawood: ten years, a few policy reforms and two very large fences. A well-known end point and starting point for those who leave their country seeking asylum in Australia is Villawood Detention Centre, formerly known as Villawood Hostel. Two women who were faced with the choice to flee share their story with their sons.

    View here.

  • Punished not Protected: Leading Australians Share Their Views on Australia's Asylum Seeker Policy [Educational Documentary Film]

    An educational documentary series featuring the views of leading Australians and concerned citizens on the effects of government policy on asylum seekers and temporary protections visa holders.

    Find library holdings here.

  • Seeking Asylum / Compass, ABC [TV]

    Seeking Asylum looks at the differing styles of Australians who devote their personal time to supporting and assisting asylum seekers to cope with the demands of detention or temporary transit visas. –ABC website.

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  • Spell Me Freedom [Short Film]

    From a collaboration between media students and refugees comes a sharply crafted short story of life in Australia's detention camps and its darkest side: lip stitching, drinking shampoo, the desperation of life inside and the dilemma of an escape, followed by the inevitable post-traumatic flashbacks.

    Find library holdings here.

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