Sedona International Film Festival 2019 – Pizza, Democracy & the Little Prince
Profound discoveries and new friendships are made during interactions between Syrian children seeking refuge in Istanbul, and international students, volunteering in Turkey over their summer holidays. As these unlikely pairings are thrust together the Syrian refugees surprise and overwhelm their international counterparts with their bravery, humour and humanity showing above all that they too are just children.
Interview with Writer/Director Elena Horn
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
Our film was created in the hopes of combating some of the ways in which refugees are portrayed in the media, either being depicted as victims or as burdens on society, portrayals that fuel this notion of refugees being "other" to "us" the fortunate bystanders in this humanitarian crisis. By contrast 'Pizza, Democracy and the Little Prince' allows refugees to represent themselves and thus focuses on their universal humanity encouraging the viewer to identify and relate to them as people not as victims. It is our hope that by offering more humanising depictions of refugees we can empower those afflicted and foster a more compassionate and nuanced understanding of the refugee crisis; setting the stage for a positive social change to be effectuated.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
Crucially the film flips the script on the traditional coverage of the refugee crisis, giving the power to the refugees and allowing them to choose how they represent themselves. More specifically, the film allows a group of young Syrian refugees to interview and lead a conversation with international students volunteering in Turkey; offering a unique insight into their outlooks on life through a series of uplifting and surprising encounters. This approach allows the viewer to engage with an unflinching and entirely authentic portrayal of the refugee crisis and gets to know more intimately those who are affected by it in a way which is not commonly available.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
The film engages with a group of young Syrian refugees living in Turkey and sees them choose to reveal personal information about themselves whilst conversing with international student volunteers. Through these discussions with their international counterparts, they forge personal bonds and friendships over pizza, football and even an Arabic copy of the Little Prince. Ultimately these personal connections which are made reflect the wider reality that refugees are not "other" to "us" and cannot be reduced to mere victims. Indeed, the film champions their humanity and demonstrates that they are people sharing the same universal desires, interests and needs as those fortunate enough to be mere bystanders in this humanitarian crisis.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
One of the keys to the success of this project was giving the freedom to the refugee children to choose what they wished to share or discuss with the international volunteers. In doing so we committed to placing our trust in the pairings we created to generate genuinely thought-provoking encounters. This meant giving up control of the direction of the conversations which was both the most difficult element to endure but also essential in achieving the extraordinary level of authenticity we wanted.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive with many people reflecting on the lack of such balanced and humanizing portrayals of refugees in the media. Many people have even been inspired to help support the refugee community with a few donors raising funds to buy school uniforms and other supplies for the Syrian children in the film, which was heartwarming to see.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
So far the feedback has been humbling with an outpouring of sympathy for the cause and a clear desire to see more of this type of depiction of refugees. The fact that the film doesn't force a focus on the hardships the refugees faced and instead emphasizes the similarities they have with their international counterparts has proven to be very potent and actually creates more compassion for these aspects of their lives as it first forces the viewer to identify with the refugees.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
Our hopes are that by having our film visible and being viewed by as many people as possible we can help educate the public on the refugee crisis and spread a more nuanced and representative depiction of refugees to the general populace. By doing so we can empower the refugees themselves, giving them the opportunity to redress the de-humanizing ways in which the media portray them and help create a culture of compassion and justice. Furthermore, we want to spark a debate between filmmakers about focusing the methods of nonfictional filmmaking back towards the way we interact with our protagonists instead of which equipment we use in order to achieve a more cinematic style.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
We would love to have distributors, film festival directors, and journalists on board in order to unfold the entire potential impact of the film. We are searching for people who value the human experience of watching a film over its aesthetic. The style of the movie should amplify the message and not overpower it.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
Our hope is that the film will help combat the dangerous and divisive "us" and "them" interpretation and create a more inclusive and nuanced culture surrounding the crisis. We are working on integrating our film with educational platforms to spread this message of inclusion to the next generation helping to galvanize more people to create positive social change.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Power lays with those who ask the questions. What happens if we flip the roles of the news coverage concerning migration?
Would you like to add anything else?
Only that unity is key to solving humanitarian crises such as these and that messages which use such causes to create cheap emotional reactions though they raise awareness on the issues ultimately do a disservice to those who they are trying to help by feeding into a divisive mindset of "us" and "them".
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
The key creatives on the project, Elena Horn and Alessandro Leonardi, are also working on other films which follow some of the same characters which are featured in 'Pizza, Democracy and the Prince'. One longer format film which follows some of these children into their homes and engages with other residents of the neighbourhood. Another, a shorter format film that focuses specifically on a pair of young twins who dream of being teachers and are taking matters into their own hands and educating some of their peers in the Syrian refugee neighbourhood in which they live in Istanbul. These deeper dives into the lives of these inspiring young children offer much of the uplifting messages as those in 'Pizza, Democracy and the Little Prince’. Furthermore, Elena Horn is directing a documentary that deals with the question of how the Holocaust is being taught to children in German high schools.
Interview: January 2019
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Pizza, Democracy & the Little Prince
Profound discoveries and new friendships are made during interactions between Syrian children seeking refuge in Istanbul, and international students, volunteering in Turkey over their summer holidays. As these unlikely pairings are thrust together the Syrian refugees surprise and overwhelm their international counterparts with their bravery, humour and humanity showing above all that they too are just children.
Length: 9:57
Director: Elena Horn
Producer: Alevtina Nepomniachtchikh
Writer: Elena Horn and Alessandro Leonardi
About the writer, director and producer:
ELENA HORN is a young German filmmaker who started her career as a media psychologist researching the framing effects in the news coverage of the Iraq War. She is working as a story producer for ARTE, WDR, RTL and SPIEGEL TV Wissen. Elena is a fellow of the Logan Non-Fiction Program in New York. In 2018 she was selected for the Global Short Doc Forum in London with her debut documentary "The Lesson".
ALESSANDRO LEONARDI is an Italian film director. He graduated in Philosophy from the Università degli Studi in Milan, and then moved to London, where he obtained a Masters in Documentary at Brunel University. His short documentary debut "Generation In Transit" featured on BBC3. His short movies received important Italian (Rai Cinema, Film Commission Torino Piemonte) and International awards. He is a fellow at the Logan Institute in New York.
ALEVTINA NEPOMNIACHTCHIKH is an avid supporter of initiatives in education. She founded The Gazi Research Project to actively support research into issued faced by refugees and translate it into real-world initiatives. Alevtina is also the founder of Open Citadel, a UK based production company dedicated to producing content in support of educational causes that seek to address all forms of prejudice and discrimination and generate positive social change.
Key cast:
Looking for: distributors, film festival directors, journalists
Facebook: Pizza, Democracy & the Little Prince
Twitter: @PizzaDemocracy
Instagram: @pizzademocracylittleprince
Website: http://open-citadel.com/#/pizza
Funders: Open Citadel (production company)
Made in association with: Give a Hand (International Volunteer Programs)
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Sedona International Film Festival/Sedona, Arizona - 24 February 2019 4pm and 28 February at 10 am