Remember Your Name, Babylon

Waiting, waiting, waiting. This is the main feature of the lives of a group of men and women, brought together by fate, who crossed the sea in search of a better life. They live in a no man’s land, somewhere on the coast of Spain between long rows of hermetically sealed greenhouses. Every now and again they get some work, but most of their time is spent in little ramshackle shacks built from pallets, bits of tarpaulin and anything else they can lay their hands on. They have no interaction with the rest of the world at all, although they occasionally refer to some shady lawyers who are supposed to be working on residence permits. The camera underlines this exercise in patience by always observing from the same position. Wait and see what happens. A woman sits next to a bottle of water. A man lies on a bed, or folds some children’s clothes into a tiny pile. Calling home is a highlight: things are going well, I don’t have much work, I don’t have my permit yet, I’ll have to stay another year, I miss you. During such conversations, their inertia falls away and the migrants become human again.