Frontières (2001) Online

Every year thousands of Africans try to cross from Africa to Europe via the Gibraltar Strait. In Frontieres we follow a group just leaving from Senegal on their way through Sahara to Tangier, and finally across the Strait, and some don't make it.

We get to know their stories, reasons, and we learn of their rough trip.

It's a very realistic, sad and movie story, that makes one ask the obvious question: "Who is to blame?"

However, a follow up of how their lives in Europe turn out, for is it worth risking your life in the first place?

The story also has a touch of humour.

I happened upon the second half of "Frontieres" playing on TV and couldn't turn away. While the film clearly takes the part of advocate for the Africans trying desperately to reach Europe and their dreams of a better life, it doesn't preach, or sentimentalize their experience. The daily struggles and occasional joys of these characters are easily recognizable, humanizing people who are too often described in terms of statistics.

I definitely will be hunting down this film to see it from the beginning, but even from a partial viewing, I think it speaks strongly from a point of view that tends to get overlooked, at least here in the 'developed world'.