The Building and Burning of a Refugee Camp

The story of a new Ireland and its vibrant music scene, but also that of a postcolonial society wrestling with its heritage. A society where folk music carries both the oppression of the past and the dream of a bright future.

A light kept on to deter makes it hard to see past your reflection. In Fear Fokol, we take a nightly ride into the fears and anxieties of Johannesburg’s wealthy inhabitants by following the work of the private security guards hired to protect them. The illusion of security slowly dissolves as we dig into a fragile climate of inequality, paranoia and masculinity in crisis.

Dublin, June 2024: thousands of men seeking asylum in Ireland are homeless. Olivia and her group of volunteers are trying to find safe locations where the men can sleep each night, but the government is actively enforcing its new policy against homeless encampments, and the far-right are lurking.

Floating between Ireland, Spain, Chile, Sweden, France and Bangladesh over seven years, I Must Away follows four migrants who have each left home to rebuild their life abroad. Narrated by a series of letters from the director to his grandmother, the film is a kaleidoscopic vérité essay which disentangles roots, land and identity, and explores the unequal distribution of rights and privileges, in our age of migration.