Refugee Awareness Project

Extra Credit Film Assignment

If you find yourself wanting to learn more about refugee and other threatened populations, you may wish to work on the film assignment.  I have included a range of films—documentaries, films based on real events, and fiction—that touch on this topic.  Your task is to choose one of these films, review it, and create a wiki page about the population it portrays.  (Click here for a sample page.)

Your wiki page should include:

• Images (at least two—consider including a map)
• A personal review of the film you watched.  Like your article reviews, this should include a one paragraph summary and a one (or more) paragraph personal response.
• Some basic information or statistics about the refugee population in your movie.
• Links (at least three) to articles and other resources about the refugee group.

Click here to see the grading rubric for this project.

Films to consider

(Most or all of these are available from online sites such as Netflix, and many are available at local video stores.  See me if you are having a hard time locating one or if you have another film to suggest.)

Hotel Rwanda (2004):  The true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda.

Welcome to Sarajevo (1997):  An international group of reporters, in Sarajevo to report on the Bosnian war, discovers an orphanage near the front line.

The Kite Runner (2007): The main focus of this is a story of friendship and redemption, but it does give a sense of pre-Taliban and Taliban Afghanistan, as well as the societal differences perceived to exist between ethnic Pashtuns and Hazaras.

Not Without My Daughter (1991):  Based on a true story about an American woman who travels to Iran with her Iranian husband, this movie gives a sense of life during the Islamic Revolution.  Was followed in 2002 by the documentary Without My Daughter, which explains the husband’s side of the issue.

The Killing Fields (1984):  An American citizen is trapped in Cambodia during tyrant Pol Pot's bloody "Year Zero" ethnic cleansing campaign, which claimed the lives of two million "undesirable" civilians.

Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars (2005): This stunning documentary captures the triumphant story of six musicians who escaped the horrific violence of Sierra Leone's civil war, landed in a West African refugee camp and formed a band that would go on to travel the world.

Lost Boys of Sudan (2003): A feature-length documentary that follows two Sudanese refugees on an extraordinary journey from Africa to America.

The Flute Player (2003):  After the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975, 9-year-old Arn Chorn-Pond was thrust into the darkness of Cambodia's Killing Fields. Now, after living in the United States for 20 years, Arn faces the dark shadows of his war-torn past as he fights to save Cambodia's once-outlawed traditional music from extinction.