Life Ahead

More information coming soon.

Synopsis

Jahia, a 16-year-old Eritrean girl, lives in a centre for asylum seekers in Belgium. Without perspectives, Jahia has a fear of the future that isolates her and prevents her from living. One day, she meets Nèta, a young Moldavian girl, who drags her along in her crazy energy. Unfortunately, Nèta's family is ordered to leave the country. Nèta suddenly falls into a deep sleep, victim of the resignation syndrome. Jahia will do everything to wake her up and not succumb to the contamination of despair.

Director statement

How do teenage asylum seekers experience the long wait and uncertainty they have to face? Adolescence is a time when one is burning with a desire to live, a desire to plant your own roots and contemplate the future. But how can one express this desire when the future is uncertain and when you’re stuck with a painful past? Having first worked in documentary, immersing myself in reality has always been a crucial step for me. I spent time in several refugee and asylum seeker centres where I was able to share the daily lives of social workers as well as residents. I was moved by the life force that I sensed among a majority of the adolescents I met. Particularly adaptive and hoping to find a new home, they rapidly become fluent in the local language, and just as quickly, gain an understanding of the country’s culture. Most of them are focused and looking forward to a new life.

During my immersion, I was struck by the prevalence of mental health issues among asylum seekers. I also discovered the existence of the resignation syndrome. This syndrome induces a sudden catatonic state. The brain dissociates itself from the body. Adolescents subject to the syndrome fall asleep as a means of protection and can no longer be woken up. Children and adolescents from asylum-seeking families who have received a negative response to their asylum procedure are an at-risk population. Having spent a good part of their short lives in a peaceful country, learning suddenly that they must return to their homeland (often experienced as going back to a nightmare), comes as a great shock. The condition can last for months and even years before the adolescents end up waking again. These cases bring to light the complex and fascinating connections between body and mind. And so it comes to pass that the burning desire for life and the hope of these adolescents can suddenly be crushed. And they end up spending their youth, often seen as the best age, sleeping.

The film I am proposing here is a story of friendship and resilience. It’s the story of an encounter that will have a major impact on the respective lives of two human beings. I find it amazing that short relationships between people from very different backgrounds can sometimes turn out to be the most important ones in a lifetime. The story of Jahia and Nèta is the story of a 'normal' adolescence in a particular context. To survive and grow, the two main protagonists will need to overcome enormous obstacles. They will both try to save each other and save themselves. By putting desire for life at the centre of this film, and by confronting friendship and resilience with withdrawal and lethargy, I wish to make a political film, but not a militant one – a humanist film about a reality that is rarely addressed, for as wide an audience as possible.

Director biography

Olivier Meys is a Belgian filmmaker and screenwriter. In 2000, he graduated from the Institut des Arts de Diffusion (Belgium) with a degree in radio and film directing. Meys has made several short films and documentaries, including Dans les décombres/A Disappearance Foretold (2008), which won him the SCAM Award at Cinéma du Réel in 2008, and the radio documentary Fièvre/The Fever (2001), for which he was awarded the Grand prix SCAM at the 2003 Radiophonic Festival. Meys’s feature film debut, Bitter Flowers (2017), about a young Chinese woman who leaves behind her son and husband and moves to Paris in search of a better future, won the Margritte Award for Best First Feature and received nominations at Chicago IFF and Brussels IFF.

Huidige status

The film is currently at the end of its development, and we're about to apply to Belgian and French production funds. A third version of the script is available.

Goals

We are looking for co-production partners in European countries, and for arthouse distributors, broadcasters and sale agents.

Based on the topic (the experiences of migrant youth in western-European countries and life in asylum seekers centres), we think the project has a strong European meaning and impact. Its focus on two young female teenagers and their friendship, and its tight narration also widen its impact on a larger public, even if it stays an arthouse film. We want to add as many distribution partners as possible to have a broad European release.

The co-production could be mainly within the post-production crew but also a small part of the shooting crew and cast.