Young Muslims are travelling from Europe to fight in countries such as Syria and Somalia, lured by groups like Al-Shabaab and the Islamic State (IS). Warriors From the North follows a cohort of young Al-Shabaab sympathisers in Denmark and Sweden.
The film focuses on a Danish-Somalian boy who gradually gained contact with the group and joined them in Somalia. With his back turned to the camera as he looks out over a nondescript housing development in Copenhagen, his friend “The Shadow” describes how the young man fell victim to recruiters and left his family behind to fight for Al-Shabaab.
In-depth discussions with former members of the Danish Al-Shabaab group break stereotypes about the profile of young men and women who join – many had supportive families, attended school and led seemingly normal lives until members of the community introduced them to a previously unknown network of Al-Shabaab devotees, and along with it a new sense of belonging.
Directors Nasib Farah and Søren Steen Jespersen approach the subject from multiple perspectives, speaking with current Al-Shabaab members, young men who have left the group and the family of one young man who left his life behind to join Al-Shabaab. A number of other very young fighters from other countries including The Netherlands, their identities concealed, explain why they left home and are prepared to die.
Directed by Søren Steen Jespersen
Duration: 59′
Year: 2014
Every year thousands of Africans leave their families behind in search of a better life in Europe. Ditte Haarløv Johnsen‘s intimate portrayal of everyday life after emigration explores the lives of three very different African immigrants, from three different places, who have embarked on a perilous journey to reach a common destination: Europe.
Harouna, a young artist from the coastal town Nouadhibou in Mauretania, West Africa, has left his wife and child in hope of safety and more opportunities for the three of them. In Italy, a group of asylum seekers live in a prison-like centre, uncertain about their futures in Europe. In Copenhagen we meet a group of people who may have reached the promised land, but live in constant search for the money that their families expect them to send home.
With rawness and dignity, Days of Hope presents personal experiences of migration and the obstacles faced by African immigrants in Europe.
Directed by Ditte Haarløv Johnsen
Duration: 75′
Year: 2013
“Jan Gehl might be the most famous architect that you’ve never heard of,” filmmaker Andreas Dalsgaard told a sold-out Frontline Club audience Tuesday evening 20 August, where he screened his latest project: The Human Scale.
The movie explores Gehl’s innovation in architecture and city planning over the last several decades, from his native Copenhagen to Chongqing, Dhaka, New York and Los Angeles, to name only a few places. His re-shaping of urban life aims to accommodate the billions of people pouring into cities worldwide, yet just as importantly, to nurture the community, intimacy, spontaneity and local culture that he sees human nature craving.
Andreas M. Dalsgaard. Photo: Jim Treadway
In both the film and Q & A with Dalsgaard that followed, the contrast between the traditional modernist cities built in the 20th century and Gehl’s own re-conception of them was highlighted.
Traditional modernism, practiced by planners like New York’s Robert Moses and Paris’s Le Corbusier, featured high-rise buildings whose construction often razed old neighbourhoods, callously neglecting to regenerate the sense of community that they fostered. Vehicle traffic was accommodated above all while pedestrian life, with the vitality and social fabric it created, began to fade.
Gehl, by contrast, has emphasised sensuousness and intimacy, reorienting spaces to bring people into the street where they are offered “little invitations” – to sit, walk, cycle, and engage in social and commercial activity that fits with local culture.
Much of his inspiration came from cities of centuries past: “we always did the old cities in 5 km/hr scale,” he says. “That means that when you move at 5km/hr – walking – people are sort of squeezed a little bit together. And it’s a very sensual and interesting world. You can see all the details and colours, smells and acoustics.”
Dalsgaard particularly appreciated the sensitivity in Gehl’s approach:
“That to me is maybe the most interesting thing . . . they have the humble approach of going in and trying to understand the local context, understand how they work . . . and from there on, they try to find solutions. And then afterwards, after things have been done, they also do post-evaluations, to understand: did it actually work? How did people use this space? And I think it’s becoming something more and more common in architecture to actually do these things. And not just build it and then it’s there, and ‘it’s a “piece of art” according to the architect, and everyone has to be happy.”
Above: Dalsgaard with Documentary Programmer Wotienke Vermeer; Dalsgaard introducing the screening
Dalsgaard continued:
“You can’t copy-paste [between cities] and you shouldn’t . . . . Because Scandinavia and Copenhagen is such a unique society model that is so hard to copy, because it’s so connected to culture and hundreds of years of societal development. Like you can’t take democracy and just put it into Egypt and think everything’s going to be fine. So the idea that you can just put a bike lane up in New York, or Dallas, Texas, and people are just going to happily jump on their bike – I don’t think it’s so easy. Because there’s so many different layers and factors and things that have to work together.”
More information about The Human Scale can be found here, view the trailer:
[vimeo clip_id=”67638874″ width=”400″ height=”225″]
See Jan Gehl’s books here: Cities for People and Life Between Buildings
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