A screening of a Swedish documentary film “Nice People” was held at the “UN UNCREC Refugee Film Festival by the School Partners”.
This refugee film festival was held for the second time since this school was approved as “School Partners”, a program in which the UNHCR and educational institutions work together for the purpose of deepening understanding of refugee problems for students.
Along with the screening of the movie, we welcomed Adam Beije, a public relations officer from the Swedish Embassy in Tokyo, and he gave a lecture about the movie and Sweden’s current situation.
At 4 o’clock after school, not only students at Tamagawa Gakuen but also non-students from outside the school gathered at the venue. Following the opening remarks, Mr. Beije talked about Sweden and the history of refugees in Sweden.
Sweden is a country that has a history where about 1.3 million people emigrated to America due to hunger, poverty and religious persecution in the 19th century. Due to this, Swedish people have a strong sense of understanding of refugees, and have accepted many immigrants and refugees during the 20th century. Recently, more than 100,000 Syrian refugees were accepted.
On the other hand, Mr. Beije said that there are also criticisms which are mainly related to economics.
The movie “Nice People” is a documentary that follows the lives of young people growing through sports. In this case they are all Somali refugees.
At the beginning, the screen shows the young Somali refugees who escaped from the civil war and live in the Swedish rural town of Bohrengée but are having difficulties communicating with people in the town.
At the suggestion of a local businessman they make a Somali ‘Bandie’team, which is a winter sport in Sweeden, and they participated in the world championship as the Somalia national team.
As the day of the World Championship approached, the connections and bonds of the young people could be seen, built by sharing painful experiences in their homeland and the feeling of loneliness in a foreign country.
The scene where the teams unite at the World Championship at the end was very moving and many visitors were staring at the screen with tears in their eyes. After the screening, Mr. Beije commented about the film and sympathy for the Somalis could be felt from the crowd.
“Why were the Somali men separated from their mothers and made to live in a different place?”
“I want to do something after watching this movie, but what can we do now?”
At the time of the question-and-answer session, Mr. Beije answered each question, one by one, from the students who were inspired by the movie.
“Japan is very well develpoed and has a rich culture, but I think many Japanese are too used to that. It is important to understand that there are countries in the world that are not like Japan. So I hope you all will go overseas sometime and see with your own eyes and feel something in reality.”
“I was surprised to learn about the reality of refugees in Sweden and it made me think about the problems refugees face.”
“I had the image of being a bit scared, but it has changed. The way they were playing sports shows a lot of humanity and sympathy.”
“Since I tried think about ways to help, I grew to felt that there are some things that I could do, and the threshold for resolving refugee problems went down.”
Students commented about the feelings they had after the screening.
“I thought I want to stop seeing refugees as “a different type of person”. I would like to go abroad, talk with foreign students, and accept them as a host in Japan.”
“I thought that I should have known more about the background of the refugee problem, I would like to do further research and to learn about it more.”
They were thinking about the actions they could take.
The students gained knowledge of refugee problems and view into their lives from this screening.
“We can do something for the world.” The crowd left the with a sense being elevated.