2023, Mehdi Sahebi

Auditorium 150 - Centre des Colloques
Thursday, July 3rd - 16:30

After winning the Critics’s Week Grand Prix at the Locarno Film Festival with “Le temps des adieux”, the filmmaker made a successful return to the same prestigious section with “Prisoners of Fate”. The result is a deeply human and hopeful film that shows how friendship, solidarity and humor can keep us going.

“Prisoners of Fate” follows several Afghan and Iranian refugees as they put everything in place to start a new life after arriving in Switzerland. Not only do these people have to overcome the rigidity of the asylum system, they also have to come to terms with their personal histories. Is the kind of life we have to lead predetermined? Are we left to our own fate? Director Mehdi Sahebi, who himself fled to Switzerland from Iran in the 1980s, gives us a unique perspective in this new documentary, and creates a remarkable emotional closeness with the protagonists.

“Prisoners of Fate” won the Convergences Migrations Prize at the 43rd International Jean Rouch Festival, of which IC Migrations is a partner.