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Ramon Gieling
Netherlands
2014
72 min
World Premiere
Festival history

Cyriaque from Ivory Coast is one of the illegal refugees who joined the campaign group Wij Zijn Hier (We Are Here). These asylum seekers whose applications have been denied have been struggling for two years to gain a face, a voice and a permanent resident permit. They received national attention when they set up a tent camp in the Amsterdam district of Osdorp. After being evicted by the mayor, they found temporary accommodation in a vacant church known as the Vluchtkerk (Refuge Church). Ever since, the group has had to move on to new temporary shelter every few months. Filmmaker Ramón Gieling makes contact with Cyriaque, a musical and spiritual figure, and follows him from the square in Osdorp until their paths diverge, partly because “the film is finished.” This comment is the filmmaker’s acknowledgement of his own opportunism, using it as a synecdoche for the coldhearted limbo of political and social indifference in which the musician finds himself. Gieling’s primary role is to present a courageous man who can neither stay nor return, and who, despite it all, still manages to create his songs which make others forget their sorrows – if only for a while.

Credits
Director
Involved TV Channel
    Human
    Human
Screening copy
    Pieter van Huystee Film
    Pieter van Huystee Film