Cast Away Souls
Cast Away Souls looks at the political structures behind the conditions at the deportation centre Sjælsmark, as well as at the controversial methods used to push the centre's residents to leave Denmark voluntarily.
Some call the methods inhumane, while others call them necessary.
Synopsis
All over Europe, refugees, asylum seekers and migrants are facing detention and forced deportation. Denmark currently has two deportation camps. One of these is called Sjælsmark. This documentary addresses ‘the banality of evil’ and the political structures that legitimizes and uphold the dehumanizing conditions in places such as Sjælsmark.
Through a conversation between the Sjælsmark unit manager Niels Johannessen and one of the residents, Stanley Edward, the documentary exposes how the inhumane methods used to push the residents to leave Denmark are licensed by the evasion of responsibility and political decisions that put Human Rights and international conventions to the test.
Screening requests
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“The conversation between the two men makes us sense the lack of humanity and the coldness of this system in a new and unique way and with merciless force. Cast Away Souls is a harrowing testimony of European asylum politics.”
– Kasseler Dokfest
Credits
Title: Cast Away Souls
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 00:34:06 minutes
Countries: Denmark / Germany
Languages: English Subtitles: English
Production year: 2019
Direction & production: Stanley Edward, Nanna Katrine Hansen, Thomas Elsted, Markus Fiedler
Festivals & Awards
CPH:DOX | Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival | 27.3.2019 | Film premiere and debate about the Danish deportation centre Sjælsmark and about the conditions for rejected asylum seekers in Denmark.
Dokfilmwoche Hamburg | 5.4.2019 | German premiere
Close:Up Edinburgh Docufest | 9.10.2019 | Winner, Best experimental documentary
Kasseler Dokfest | 36th Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival | 13.11.2019 | Winner, Most impressive short documentary (jury statement)
Other screenings
Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, Paris: Louvre Auditorium: screening as part of ‘Dante and the Birds’ | 01.03.2020 | Berlin: Haus der Kulturen der Welt | 30.08.20
Louisiana, Museum of Modern Art (Denmark): Spaces of disappearance, literature and film event curated by CAMP / Center for Art on Migration Politics | 7.9.2019
International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands): 'Cast Away Souls': Documentary on the politics of detention in deportation camps. Seminar on the topic of refugee struggles | 29.5.2019
University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Ottersberg (Germany), Seminar on Science of Media Culture & Scenic Research | 6.11.2019
Intercultural Studies and the Cultural Encounters program, at the Department of Communication at Roskilde University: ‘Cast Away Souls: analytical interventions from Sjælsmark deportation camp’ | 23.04.2019
Viertelzimmer in Hamburg, Anti-Fascist Bar & Film Night | 18.12.2019
Folkets Hus in Copenhagen, screening by Crisis Mirror | 21.05.2019 and by DIEM25 | 16.12.2019
Bremen presented by KOP Bremen | 28.02.20 | kopbremen.noblogs.org
Dokumentarfilmsalon in Hamburg-St. Pauli | 10.03.2020 | dokumentarfilmsalon.org
Upcoming screenings
Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, Berlin: Haus der Kulturen der Welt | 30.08.20