Video Life Stories of Migrants: Work Screening

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Hall, Tim Sullivan Lounge, AUC New Cairo

Contact
sape.events@aucegypt.edu

Work is the second film to be screened by Pavlos Kavouras, head of the Department of Ethnomusicology and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Athens. For four weeks Professor Pavlos will screen his award winning Video Life stories of Migrants in Greece. The films are co-produced by migrants and Greeks and chart the everyday lives of Egyptians in Thessaloniki, Albanians in Crete, Indians in Attica, Nigerians and Ukrainians in Athens.

Video life stories of migrants is the product of a collaboration between migrants and Greeks. It consists of 20 short films which present the everyday reality in Greece in a way that combines the actually lived experience and the perceptions of both migrants and Greeks. By following the methodology of participatory video, migrants and Greeks contributed actively to the design and execution of the project throughout the stages of its production. After being trained to use modern equipment for audiovisual recording and to the theory of film narrative, with an emphasis placed on life stories and observational documentary, 20 migrants and 20 Greeks working in pairs (a migrant and a Greek) filmed the life stories of  five migrant groups (Egyptians in Thessaloniki, Albanians in Crete, Indians in Attica, Nigerians and Ukrainians in Athens). The film narratives are focused on four fundamental aspects of daily life (family, work, art and the idea of “here and there”).