Columbia Global Centers with Undergraduate Global Engagement present the second webinar of their 3-part Afghanistan Collaboratory. An interview and discussion with the director of the award winning animated documentary, "Flee," as well as with other forced migration experts. To register, go here. 200 lucky registrants will be given a link to watch the animation for free.
The topic of migration has taken on an increasing complexity as one of the main marks of contemporary time. Refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, stateless peoples, labor migrants and more recently ecological refugees are all rolling into one massive phenomenon signifying population shifts in both geo-political and geo-economic contexts. Among this exist diasporas, more specifically a diaspora born in Afghanistan that has been present since the beginning of the Afghan-Soviet war in 1979.
As Afghans are forced across borders, they face fortified boundaries, restrictive immigration control systems, invasive and automated surveillance systems, interception methods, trafficking, exploitation, and more. To add, the massive inflows of migration are only expanded as transformations of migration dynamics put old strategies of protection at odds with the war of the time that seems to never cease within Afghanistan’s borders.
Born from these complexities are stories of triumph and torture that arise at the edges of art in all spaces including those of film and animation. One such story is found in a film called Flee, an animated documentary by Jonas Poher Rasmussen, that tells the true story of a successful Afghan academic living in Denmark who is confronted with a secret from his past.
The secrets that lie within the film are shadows of what many who are forcibly displaced face every day. Themes of trafficking, family separation, trauma, and the implications that cut across legal, national, and administrative lines of protection and law are all too common. But what sits at the center of the entire film is a relationship of self and mental health as a forced migrant.
Moderator:
Taylor Hirschberg: Human rights activist and Hearst Endowed Scholar at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Prior to Hirschberg’s time at Mailman, he worked as a humanitarian for Médecins Sans Frontières. Recently, Taylor has been a part of the evacuation efforts of LGBTQI+ Afghans.
Panelists:
Jonas Poher Rasmussen: Director and writer, Flee (2021), Searching for Bill (2012) and What He Did (2015).
Mariam Ghani: Artist, writer, and filmmaker. Her films have been screened at the Berlinale, Rotterdam. Her work has also been exhibited and screened at the Guggenheim, MoMA, Met Breuer and Queens Museum in New York, and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Madeline Garlick: Chief of the Protection Policy and Legal Advice Section in the Division of International Protection of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
M. Claire Greene: Psychiatric and substance use epidemiologist in the Program on Forced Migration and Health at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
Introductions: Dr. Shannon Marquez, Dean of Global Engagement and Director of the Columbia University Center of Undergraduate Engagement (UGE) and Safwan M. Masri, EVP for Global Centers and Global Development