Unaccompanied minors in search for asylum

Shadow Game – A journey through the dark side of Europe 

It is the story of a modern Odyssey – the journey unaccompanied minors undertake in search for asylum in Europe. This transmedia storytelling follows Jano and his friends Shiro, Durrab, SK and Hammoudi through Europe: from Greece to North Macedonia, on to Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and from Italy onto France and The Netherlands. With European fences being erected across the continent, seeking asylum has become almost impossible. The teenagers travel through a shadow world, crossing snowy landscapes and steep mountains, sleeping under bridges and in forests, walking through minefields, climbing over barbed wire and meeting wild animals – and even wilder aggressive border police – along their way.  

The experimentally filmed account was shot over a period of three years, partly by the boys themselves on their phones and partly by the journalists and directors Eefje Blankevoort and Els van Driel. 

The “Game”, a bitterly ironic term for crossing borders used both by the teenagers as well as the smugglers, has all the normal elements found in a game: difficulty levels, obstacles the “players” need to overcome to further proceed with their goal, winners and losers. It’s a Game of life or death as one of the boys tells the camera. Only this Game – that can last months and even years on end – it often seems impossible for the “players” to reach their final destination.  

I was lucky to have the opportunity to attend the public movie screening in Athens on 10 April and participate in a masterclass afterwards with the director Els Van Drier entitled: From Syria to Ukraine and Beyond: Children on the Move. The Dutch journalist and director Els van Driel, analysed how we can we raise public awareness through storytelling and shared the way the film is being used for educational purposes in The Netherlands. She explained how the human rights film festival Movies that Matter has developed an educational programme around Shadow Game for Dutch secondary school pupils. Through their programme, thousands of school children in The Netherlands have seen the film and participated in reflection discussions afterwards.  

The Shadow Game awareness campaign peaks on 14 June 2022 (to mark World Refugee Day on 20 June), with a screening at the European Parliament in Brussels. 

For viewers outside the Netherlands, the film will be made available online from June 2022. Alternatively you can watch it at one of the international film festivals that will be screening the film  

https://shadowgame.eu/en/film/