All language subtitles for Human Flow-Ai Weiwei (2017)

Where's your mommy?

Okay.

It's very difficult to say.

Obviously, we don't have
a crystal ball to forecast,

but all the elements
that have driven people to flee

are still there.

The conflicts are still waging.

Syria, the biggest driver
of displacement,

is very much volatile. Uh...

Even though right now it's slow,
and over the past two days

there have hardly been
any arrivals,

but it's also extremely cold.

Winter has v-very much set in.

With the improvement of weather,
with coming of spring,

it's, uh, very likely that the
numbers will grow once more.

And it's difficult
to forecast how many,

but we should be prepared,
we should be prepared to receive

probably the numbers that
we have seen in 2015 again.

This extraordinary event
that has unfolded

has also impacted Europe
in many ways.

We are here, right now,
on Lesvos Island.

This is the point where
half a million people,

most of them refugees,
set foot and entered Europe.

An... An extraordinary way that
people have been coming through.

And just the last year alone,
over one million have come

to Europe through
the Mediterranean Sea.

And although these are movements
we haven't seen in decades...

In fact, it hasn't been since
the Second World War

that so many had fled
and come to Europe...

It's still something
that we need to consider

in the global context
with so many millions

that are actually displaced.

The situation
in the camp is bad,

because the borders
are all closed now.

First, the Macedonian border
was closed.

Then the Slovenian and Croatian
and Serbian borders were closed.

So there is no way
for these people to advance

on their journey
to try to get to Germany.

They're now trapped here.

There is about 13,000
people in this camp.

Most of them are from Syria,
Iraq and Afghanistan.

They are fleeing from war.

Uh, I talked to people
who just fled from the bombs

just a few weeks ago.
And they're trapped.

It's been raining since Monday.

Everybody is completely wet.

They have no way
to dry their clothes.

Um, just to get a little bit
of food sometimes...

It takes two hours
to get one cup of soup.

So it really is
a desperate situation.

So through this little gate,

last year more than
a million people

walked their way to Europe.

This is the gate
that they pass through

along these railway tracks,

going first through Macedonia,

then to Serbia,
then through Croatia.

A million people
walked through this gate.

How long are you on duty today?

Europe is an interesting case,

because Europe of course
is the continent

where the refugee convention
was born.

This was one of the essential,
crucial initiatives

that came out
of the Second World War

and of the horrors of the war.

Initially, the focus
was very much on Europe.

It's interesting that
we have gone full circle

and now the focus
is again on Europe.

But 1951, of course, one
of the main refugee problems,

or perhaps the main problem then

was refugees
coming across the Iron Curtain.

So there was a strong focus
on individual cases

fleeing the Soviet bloc.

The European member states

traditionally have had
very good asylum mechanism.

This was happening
in a smooth way

when numbers were small.

When people started
coming in large numbers,

then the system collapsed.

Should be taking...
Take a picture of him like this.

- Sorry.
- Yes.

You know,
Jordan historically, um,

has been truly
a crossroads for peoples.

Um, whether it's... it's from
antiquities with caravans

or today as a host for people
from throughout this region.

And we have tried to play a role
in keeping an open door

and enabling people
to find a refuge here.

Um, a-and to retain, you know,
some sense of dignity,

a home, until they are able
to return to, um, their homes.

You know, the average stay
I think of a refugee

is 25 years
or... or some number like that.

A-And this humanitarian side
I think is very, very important.

You must always
hold onto humanity.

And the more immune
you are to people's suffering,

I think that's
very, very dangerous.

And we... You know,
our region is very challenging.

We have difficulties every
which direction you look at.

And I think it's critical for us
to maintain this humanity,

for our own... you know,
the health of our own society

and community and relations.

Let's go!

Get up! Get up. Get up.

Being a refugee

is much more than
a political status.

It is the most pervasive

kind of cruelty
that can be exercised

against a human being
by depriving the person

of all forms of security,

the most basic requirements
of a normal life...

By cruelly placing that person
at the mercy sometimes

of very un-or inhospitable
host countries

that do not want
to receive this refugee.

You are forcibly robbing
this human being of all aspects

that would make human life
not just tolerable

but meaningful in many ways.

Uh-uh, uh-uh...

Uh-uh, uh-uh...

Hey, hey, hey.

Inhaler, inhaler!

Hey, you. You.

Inhaler.

The officials came here
and told them,

"Look there is no way you gonna
get papers to continue."

So, you're going to be deported.

"Either you go voluntarily
or we arrest you."

And yesterday,
it started with...

police coming here
and actively arresting people.

They are very afraid
of being brought back.

I mean, there is a reason
Why these people are here.

Sorry.

It's okay, it's okay. It's okay.

Okay. A little water.

Come on, man!

This is one of them.

Hold it. Hold on.

Hey.

Today, we're
here at the Ein al-Hilweh Camp,

which is one of the most
populated areas in the world.

In an area of 1 km,

there is approximately
100,000 different people living,

and as one knows the history
of the Palestinian people,

this camp has been here
for more than 60 years.

Generations of children
have grown up

within the walls of this camp.

If children grow up
without any hope,

without any prospects
for the future,

without any sense of them
being able to make something

out of their lives, then they
will become very vulnerable

to all sorts of exploitation,
including radicalization.

Young, particularly men
who are...

They're teenagers,

they're on their way
to adulthood,

many of them are traumatized
by unimaginable losses at home.

Uh...

They're angry,
they're frustrated,

they want to make a difference
in their...

in the lives
of their communities.

They have seen
their homes demolished,

they have seen
their families killed. Uh...

They are children who want...

they themselves want to go fight

because they think that this is

the way they can seek revenge
or get revenge for the horrors

that they have lived through.

Without memory, you are nothing,

memory is part of your history

and history is part...
Part of your geography.

Where can the Syrians go?

Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Europe.

So now, they are helping us,

they want us
to keep these refugees.

Okay, we will keep them.

They want to give us money

so we have to profit out of this
money, to educate the Syrians,

to make them work so one day
they might come back.

But now they
are pouring money in Jordan,

in Lebanon, in Turkey.

They don't want to hear anymore
about refugees.

That's their new policy now.

It's quite a hypocritical
policy, but...

I was terribly violent
along time ago,

I was a feudal, I was a warlord
along time ago.

Lebanon is small, with...

It's a country
of 18 communities,

Christians and Muslims.

So we have to preserve it,
and not to think about the past.

See the future.

And to forget about old,
about our old hatred.

Because somewhere
in our subconscious,

we hate each other.

We have to, at any price,
compromise.

Dialog is important in life.

Much more important
than anything.

In this new world of total
uncertainty, nobody knows,

I don't think somebody knows
where this world is going on.

Gaza could be, could be on Mars.

It's like as distant
as you could be.

An hour's drive from Tel Aviv...

those 1.8 million people, that,
you know, are our neighbors,

living in conditions, you know,
of a third world country

on the way to collapse, right?

Already people there,
for many hours in a day,

don't have electricity, right?

Uh, the quality of the water
is deteriorating.

We are talking about, like,

the most basic
of human needs, right?

This is, like,
almost as basic as it gets.

Is this fair? Is this equal?
Is this just?

Just as a human being,
identify that,

you know, what you are
looking at is injustice.

We are helping the returnees

to come back with the cash grant

and with some
supplementary assistance

for the more vulnerable people.

And in addition, we are helping
the government of Afghanistan

to be a refugee hosting country
for the first time.

So, Afghanistan is actually
hosting people

who have fled
for their safety also here.

So, I think the main challenge
will be the security situation,

because it is a country where
there is ongoing conflict.

And that affects the ability
of people to come back

and restart their lives.

People are sometimes unable

to go back
to their place of, uh, origin,

because it may be
in war-torn area.

That means they have been
displaced across the border

and now they are coming back

and becoming internally
displaced as well.

So that's the sad part about it.

And so the people
who are returning today...

are in
a very difficult situation.

They are probably going to have
a very difficult time

restarting their lives,

but at least they are now
citizens of their own country.

So a lot of these people

can't go back to their villages,

particularly the people
coming from Pakistan,

because they have been
displaced for 30 years,

in some cases 40 years.

They no longer have the
connections in their villages.

They can't go back
and claim the land

that their grandfathers tilled.

In some cases, their villages
are too insecure for them

to go back, and so they
end up in urban areas,

displaced and disconnected,
landless and dislocated.

As we have huge logistics,
we of course have to design,

have to decide where people
can go with their stuff.

We're here now.

And you can see, we have
one, two, three, four hangars.

Three hangars already
have people living in them.

- Hello.
- How are you?

I mean, one thing is to make
sure that people get food.

And one thing is to make
sure that people have,

like, the possibility to shower.
But the hardest is to actually

make them feel like
they are a human being,

and they are not just
one of, I don't know,

one million who came to Germany.

So I really, on a daily basis,
make people feel like

they are human beings
and we actually care about them.

No, no, no.

Every time
We took people off the deck

more people appeared.
It just never stopped.

We thought it was
going to be around 400,

but I guess it's somewhere
between 720 and 730 people.

As a group, they were

the sickest people I've seen yet

on this mission.

Uh, we had adults
with severe malnutrition.

I had a woman
who weighed 36 kilograms,

she was very, very sick.
Uh... there was

a high, high amount
of diarrhea and dysentery.

And, uh, there were people
who had scurvy

as well as chronic
vitamin C depletion,

like sailors used to see.

A lot of them came from Eritrea,

a few also from Somalia
and other places.

But the journey
they have made through Sudan,

through Khartoum up into Libya,

it was really shocking to hear
some of the stories,

to hear what they had been
through inside Libya,

often kept for several months

and just exploited, just, uh...
giving up anything they have,

any money they have
to pay for this journey

and to make it out to sea.

There were a total of
eight pregnant women on board.

Two of whom were due any day,

and one lady went into labor
our first morning.

We knew that she would have
complications that would not

allow her to successfully
deliver on the boat,

so we came to the decision

that we needed to medically
evacuate her.

So she went onto
a Coast Guard ship from Malta,

straight to the hospital,

went on to deliver
a healthy baby girl.

If that baby had been born
24 hours earlier,

the mom and the baby
would have died.

I think we've entered
a period in world history

where movements
of people across borders

has accelerated.

Maybe social media
plays a role in this.

Maybe the fact that
transportation has become

so much cheaper and more
effective plays a role in this.

And also that globalization,

though it has had
very positive outcomes,

it also has created
greater inequalities.

And inevitably, people are
going to move from locations

that are insecure
and economically nonviable

to areas where there is
more opportunities

and more stability,
and prospects of prosperity.

It's going to be
a big challenge to recognize

that the world is shrinking,

and people
from different religions,

different cultures
are going to have to learn

to live with each other.