The Fourth Global Migration Film Festival will open in Bangkok on Thursday 28^th November, leading up to International Migrants Day on 18^th December.

The 3-day event will be IOM´s fourth year of screening documentaries, features, and short films that bring the stories of migrants to different audiences, through images that connect people of every culture.

Supported by local partners – Save the Children, the Embassy of Switzerland, the Embassy of Mexico, the Embassy of Canada, and the Bangkok Screening Room, the Festival will feature five films that inform, entertain, educate, and encourage conversations about migration. 

Four international films - Purgatorio: A Journey into the Heart of the Border, ANGKAR, The Tower and Shelter – Farewell to Eden, and a local film - Manta Ray, will be screened in Bangkok this year.

Purgatorio: A Journey into the Heart of the Border is a provocative essay film which shows the chaotic reality of the border between Mexico and the United States, loaded with impressive images that transports the viewer to the very soul of life on the border.

ANGKAR portrays the effects of protecting and empowering victims of conflict and violence, including forced displacement, through the moving story of Khonsaly, who fled to France from Cambodia, away from the Khmer Rouge’s violence in the 1970s.

An animation, The Tower, portrays 70 years of strife through the eyes of a Palestinian 11-year-old girl exiled in Beirut.

Shelter – Farewell to Eden is a dark and mythological fable about a transgender person’s life in the urban underground where she has to constantly change shape to survive.

The winner of Best ASEAN Film Award at this year’s Bangkok ASEAN Film Festival, Manta Ray, tells a story of friendship between a Thai fisherman and a stranded refugee.

 “Internal and international migration continues to be an important phenomenon, largely motivated by uneven levels of development between rural and urban areas and the lack of sufficient livelihood opportunities. It is in this spirit that IOM launched The Global Migration Film Festival in 2016 to remember those that are in unfortunate situations, giving us a window into their stories and experiences,” said Dana Graber Ladek, IOM Thailand Chief of Mission.

Free admission for all and tickets will be distributed on a first come, first served basis on the day of each film’s screening.

The event will open for public from 29 - 30 November at the Bangkok Screening Room.

For more information, please contact Rilian Agunos at the IOM Regional Office in Bangkok, Tel: +66 92 341 0830, Email: gagunos@iom.int or Panitee Nuykram at IOM Thailand, Tel: +66 82 455 5948, Email: pnuykram@iom.int

Note to Editor:

More information about the Global Film Festival is available at https://thailand.iom.int/global-migration-film-festival-2019