BORDER DIARIES
Director IRENE GUTIÉRREZ
Countries Spain
Duration 24 min
Synopsis
I was born in Ceuta, a Spanish city located in the Northern border of Morocco, separated from the Iberian Peninsula by the Strait of Gibraltar. I grew up in a place where several borders overlap: Muslims and Christians, East and West, Africa and Europe, North and South. A city which is the key for the African immigration policy in Europe. Border Diaries is a shared journey into the heart of the border through images. It is the story of my return to the born place accompanied by dozens of Super 8 movies filmed by my father when he was the age that I have now. But also the chronicles of Blade, Divine, Ndefi, Ubein and Leon, five young Cameroonians who shot with a mobile phone their daily routine while they was waiting in the Moroccan forest named Chef Bandit the best time to cross into Ceuta by sea. It is the encounter of my images, my father's films and the travelers’ videos, the juxtaposition of those disparate realities 30 years later on both sides of the fence.
I was born in Ceuta, a Spanish city located in the Northern border of Morocco, separated from the Iberian Peninsula by the Strait of Gibraltar. I grew up in a place where several borders overlap: Muslims and Christians, East and West, Africa and Europe, North and South. A city which is the key for the African immigration policy in Europe. Border Diaries is a shared journey into the heart of the border through images. It is the story of my return to the born place accompanied by dozens of Super 8 movies filmed by my father when he was the age that I have now. But also the chronicles of Blade, Divine, Ndefi, Ubein and Leon, five young Cameroonians who shot with a mobile phone their daily routine while they was waiting in the Moroccan forest named Chef Bandit the best time to cross into Ceuta by sea. It is the encounter of my images, my father's films and the travelers’ videos, the juxtaposition of those disparate realities 30 years later on both sides of the fence.