Mighty Afrin: in the time of floods (Angelos Rallis) Greece |

Mighty Afrin; in the time of floods
Angelos Rallis
Greece, France, Germany. 2023. 92 min

The mighty Brahmaputra river is rising again, ready to swallow everything in its path. On a disappearing mud island, 12-year-old orphan Afrin prepares to leave the only world she has ever known. When the floodwaters submerge her home, she refuses to surrender to its deadly tides. Afrin rows herself in a wooden boat toward the teeming metropolis of Dhaka to find her estranged father among the millions of climate refugees. Forced to grow up fast, Afrin must confront the mysteries of a sinking world.

ANGELOS RALLIS

It’s Angelos’ third feature, he has a background in anthropology and photography and for almost two decades has dedicated himself in telling stories from under-represented parts of the world sharing the voices of people that are rarely heard or lie unnoticed (The Yazidi genocide in Iraq and Syria, the Rwandan reconciliation process). Before that, Angelos has been working with minorities (Uyghur Chinese minority, Asian diasporas in Europe). His career started in 2007 when he commenced a long term project documenting London’s East End emerging cultures and Bangladeshi communities examining their identity and the pattern of migration. This ethnographic body of work drove him to focus on Bangladesh and the current situation of climate migrants.

The film has been shot over five years mostly by himself as he is doing also the camera and sound work. In some of the most dangerous scenes in Dhaka, he worked with a small local crew to control the shooting and maintain the safety of the children in a busy environment and throughout Covid times.

The film is a cooperative project that aims also to create a better future for Afrin. On the social footprint of the film, we hope the film will have an impact as an international wake-up call to the climate crisis but also to the visibility of a community in the Brahmaputra river basin of who seem to be in obscurity.