Geneva – The 2020 Global Migration Film Festival concludes today, 18 December, as in previous years in conjunction with the United Nations’ observance of International Migrants Day.

Since 2016, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has sponsored the event, which annually unfolds with film screenings on six continents, usually in public forums including refugee camps, universities, embassies and other venues.

In 2020, for the first time, the GMFF was celebrated virtually, with on-line screening conducted for a global audience watching features and documentary works via computer. The last virtual screening of the five films selected as finalists will take place this evening at 19:00 CET.

Individual IOM missions also held their own events.

To celebrate International Migrants Day on 18 December, IOM’s Vienna Regional Office teamed with the United Nations Information Service Vienna (UNIS Vienna), and the Global Migration Film Festival for a screening and panel discussion.  

USA for IOM and IOM Washington inaugurated the festival at its regional level with an online screening on December 10 of ‘8000 Paperclips.’ The documentary tells the story of Raffael Lomas, an Israeli artist who travels to Uganda to make art with South Sudanese children raised in Israel and later deported to Africa. The film’s producer and one artist featured in the film participated in an after- screening panel discussion.

On 11 December, the focus moved from Uganda to Greece, as the Regional Office screened ‘Amygdalia,’ like “8000 Paperclips” one of five works selected as GMFF finalists for this year. The movie questions the notions of belonging, estrangement and home, as five women reflect on their experiences as “foreigners.”

IOM’s Regional Office for Central America, North America and the Caribbean presented a program of screenings of films selected with a wide variety of themes. IOM Bahamas arranged the screening of ‘8000 Paperclips’ via the Bahamas Learning Channel. The movie was to be broadcast every day this month, starting on 11 December.

Another regional event was the Caribbean Sub-Regional screening, a joint initiative that united IOM missions in Dominica, Guyana, Bahamas and Jamaica. The group screened on 17 December ‘Revolutions from Afar,’ a work on Sudanese-American poets and musicians in the diaspora and their reaction to living in exile while observing the regime change in Sudan. That film also is among the five GMFF finalists.

For additional information, please contact

Joel Millman, e-mail: jmillman@iom.int

Jorge Gallo, e-mail: jgallo@iom.int