Stop-over perhaps owes the accuracy of its vision to the circumstances that triggered its making: selected by a Greek festival for his short film, The Suitcase, Kaveh Bakhtiari, an Iranian-Swiss, realises that a distant cousin is detained in the country in which he is welcome guest. But his cousin, like the thousands of others who have survived perilous journeys, is entrapped in this European buffer country and forced to live a clandestine under-life. The phenomenon is not new, but Bakhtiari films it literally from the inside: he settles in the former utility room now converted into a flat, where Amir, a legal Iranian resident, shares his know-how with exiles less fortunate than himself. The documentarian’s ability to listen prevents the film from turning into a political tract and reveals some endearing and memorable figures. This chronicle of a daily life torn between fear and despair shows the staggering disproportion between the migrants’ goals (join parents, stop wandering) and the risks they run. Without ever forgetting his privileged status as a European, the filmmaker dissolves the opposition between “them” and “us” for the spectator. “The day migrants no longer want to come, it’s us who should emigrate”…
C.G.
