Film highlights experiences of children in the Calais Jungle
Calais Children: a Case to Answer, a film which highlights the plight of almost 2,000 lone children who were in the Calais ‘Jungle’ when it was burnt down at the end of 2016, will be screened in the Attenborough Film Theatre at the University of Leicester on Monday 21 May 2018, starting at 6pm.
The screening is being hosted by the Leicester Migration Network and our School of Media, Communication and Sociology in association with CivicLeicester and De Montfort University's School of Applied Social Sciences.
The film will be followed by a question and answer session and discussion with: Dr Gaja Maestri from our School of Media, Communication and Sociology; the filmmaker, Sue Clayton; and two young adults who came to the UK as unaccompanied minors.
The discussion will be chaired by Alison Smith, who is currently completing Clinical Psychology training at Leicester and who has conducted research that involved interviewing young men from Afghanistan about their experiences seeking asylum in the UK as unaccompanied minors.
Dr Maria Rovisco, who organised the film screening, said: "Calais Children offers a harrowing portrait of the perils faced by the many unaccompanied minors who lived in the Calais refugee camp known as the Jungle, but also the struggle to secure their future in the UK under the Dubs Agreement. The film can be seen both as an indictment of the inhumane British asylum system and a powerful tool of protest and political change.”
The film screening is free and open to all. There will be a voluntary collection which will go to Sue Clayton and her team for use in ongoing work with the young people in the film, and others.