Migrants focus of Cairo's IOM Film Festival

The third edition of the Global Migration Film Festival took place in Egypt’s capital and majorly focused on migration stories, including sexual violence, human trafficking and integration.

The event organised in Egypt as well as 100 other countries by the International Organisation for Migration, includes the screening of 30 films in Cairo and Alexandria.

The Festival is part of a wider initiative meant to broaden the world’s awareness and understanding of migration and is expected to run until December 18.

“Everybody talks about migration, but unfortunately not necessarily in the right words. We are forgetting that all of us or part of us, members of our families, have been migrants. They didn’t do it always in an easy way. And we want to remind people that the world is made up of a series of cultures, of people living together, and that migration is part of us.” said the representative of International Organization For Migration, Laurent De Boeck.

Holding under the theme, “the promise and challenge of migration, and the positive contributions migrants make to their communities”, the films chosen this year range from short films and documentaries to fiction stories.

“This idea of actually showing migration with people telling stories is a very important one because migration can be something when you have prejudices, where you don’t understand, where you have fears,” said ambassador of Switzerland in Egypt.

The Global Migration Film Festival was first launched in 2016 by the IOM as part of a larger effort to heighten international awareness on the rising phenomenon of migration.