A Voice for the Voiceless, Cinema Offers a Lens to Humanize Migrant Experiences

According to the United Nations International Organization for Immigration (IOM), 304 million people worldwide were international immigrants in 2024, 1 out of 26 people. And based on recent data from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), there were 42.5 million refugees globally, with an estimated one million people per year seeking asylum, a process that can span months to years.

This liminal state of asylum-seekers is the focus of Ben Sharrock's award-winning film “Limbo,” introducing viewers to the fictional, but factually-grounded plight of Omar, a young Syrian asylum-seeker from Damascus temporarily settled on a remote island in Scotland. [Watch the Trailer] The film, a 2020 Cannes Festival Selectee, was the centerpiece at this year's 10th Annual Global Migration Film Festival, hosted at Lisbon’s Cinema São Jorge and organized by the United Nations Regional Information Center, IOM and the KAICIID International Dialogue Center.

The film screening was accompanied by a panel discussion, “Between Borders and Beliefs: Migrations, Myth, and Dialogue,” which provided a space for discussion where participants could engage the topic with the input of panelists with lived experience and expertise, and address misconceptions surrounding immigration, as well as the challenges faced by refugees arriving in Portugal for the first time.

Lived Experiences, Behind the Numbers

“For the first year, me and my family, we were completely lost,” said Hamed Hamdard, an Afghan national who relocated to Portugal with his family following the turbulent return of the Taliban regime in 2021. “Access to social security services, or access to public health services, access to finances, having a bank account. All these things were literally a nightmare for us.” Nearly five years later, the former Vice Minister of Finances and Administration for Afghanistan’s Ministry of the Economy says he feels integrated and now calls Portugal his country. Like many refugees, finding work and learning to speak an entirely new language were two of his largest challenges of integration, though also his two biggest accomplishments, he says.

Hamed’s story is only one of approximately 68.6 thousand refugees residing in Portugal according to 2024 data from IOM. Like Omar in Limbo, he has navigated cultural obstacles, felt the angst of watching war engulf his homeland, all while confronting the challenge of building a new life thousands of miles away from his country of origin. While fictional, Sharrock’s Limbo shines a light on the emotional and logistical hurdles asylum-seekers like Hamed endure to reestablish their lives, an experience often unseen behind national statistics.

“These types of debates and these types of films should happen more so that we can spread the reality that's behind the closed doors,” says Harmdard.

Portugal, a Host Country which Relies on Immigration

In Portugal, immigration is not just a matter of prosperity but of survival. As of 2024, Portugal’s 10.7 million population is made up of roughly 11% of international migrants, 2% lower than the European average, and like other countries in Southern Europe a low birth rate and an aging population are putting pressure on economies.

“We are one of the oldest countries by population, by age in the world. After Japan, Italy, Montenegro, we are the fourth oldest country by population,” shares Vasco Malta, Chief of Mission at IOM Portugal. “Second of all, our birth rate in Portugal is compared to countries that technically are at war.” To offset these dual pressures, the Portuguese economy, particularly the sectors of agriculture and tourism, are buoyed by immigrant labor. “The fact is that we need migrants, and their contribution to our country is undeniable,” Malta added.

While Portugal has deeply integrated immigrants from around the world, notably from former colonial territories, changing migratory patterns can demographically strain communities not familiar with new migrant populations, creating cultural gaps which can lead to potential xenophobic attitudes. “When you don't know the other, it's very easy to find someone to blame for anything that is not going well. And sometimes migrants are just the ones that are simply to blame,” says Malta.

Digital Transformation and Tackling Misinformation

In the digital era, such cultural gaps create a void of understanding that can become grounds for xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, and can quickly become chambers for misinformation, i.e. false or inaccurate rapidly-spread information. Over time, misinformation can erode positive public opinion towards immigrants and in extreme cases escalate to hate speech and crimes.

“The migrants and refugees are not the type of people that we see on social media,” says Hamdard. Whether via social media or mainstream news, misinformed narratives essentialize the immigrant, creating a single image of the “other,” one which lacks humanity, personal detail and simply “a human story.” It’s particularly in this digital environment – where uncertainty and cultural unfamiliarity abound – where films like Limbo can have a powerful influence by leveraging media to provide a window into the experiences faced by millions of refugees and immigrants.

“If we start having these types of debates and these types of films, we are tackling the misinformation. We are trying to remove the gaps that are being created between local people and migrants and refugees,” continued Hamdard. “Because at the end of the day, we are the leaves of the same tree.”

Misinformation doesn’t just threaten the positive perception of immigrants, but it can create substantial obstacles for accessing resources, navigating bureaucracy, and successfully integrating into society.

“Today, the challenge for public administration is the misinformation that exists in society,” said panelist Vera Egreja Barracho, a Board Member with Portugal’s Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA). All this misinformation has been a major obstacle for public administrations because it creates worry in people … it puts excessive pressure on services that have to be addressed, and it diverts the focus from the real resolution of the problems.”

Since its launch, AIMA has battled to reduce wait times for applicants and utilize technology to effectively keep people accurately informed. Barracho shared that transformation, "specifically the transformation of public administration, implies, nowadays and increasingly so, the adaptation of manual, analog models to digital models.” Such needs are driving AIMA to digitalize its workflows and services, create user-friendly mobile applications, and better manage data – a difficult but essential transformation in today’s complex migratory environment.

The Power of Narratives to Humanize Migrant Journeys

For those in attendance, this screening was a powerful reminder, a call to action for society to pay attention to the seldom-told stories of asylum-seekers. We all need to hear what’s happening, not only in Portugal, it’s something global, anti-immigration, anti-differences.” said Ghalia Maria Taki, an interpreter and cultural mediation specialist who immigrated from Damascus to Lisbon in 2014. She says that, “these kinds of films give a voice to those who don’t have a voice.”

Few issues today are more polarizing than immigration. In our globalized world, immigration is fast becoming a politically-charged, agenda-anchoring issue, one that tests our resolve to maintain a healthy international system, our notions of multicultural national identities, and our collective moral imperative to aid those in need. In the face of immense complexity and tension, film has the ability to show the human stories behind the statistics, the inspirational resilience of refugees that so often goes untold, and further generate critical opportunities for intercultural and interreligious dialogue – and ultimately to remind us of our shared humanity.

“Immigrants are people just like us … We are all people and we are human. So, the idea is: see the other person as a human being. They may not speak the same language, they may not have the same culture, but they are a human being,” said Sheik David Munir, the Imam at Lisbon’s Central Mosque. “Let's try to help as much as possible. And the Portuguese people, we Portuguese are hospitable, we Portuguese are humble.”