Seeking Safety by Sea Films to Inspire
On select Sundays in October, catch a film and after join in the discussion. The feature length documentary Hope follows the SIEV X tragedy focussing on the story of one of the incident’s few survivors, Iraqi refugee Amal Basry. We follow the massive changes she undergoes through her traumatic experience and while she navigates the task of integrating into the new cultural environment of Australian society.
Synopsis
Four-hundred asylum seekers were pitched into the sea when their people-smuggling boat from Indonesia sank on its way to Australia in 2001. Three-hundred-and-fifty-three people drowned. Only seven survivors made it to Australia. Amal Basry was one of those survivors, spending twenty-two hours in the ocean hanging on to a floating corpse, convinced that her son was dead and she was the only person left alive. Acclaimed documentary maker Steve Thomas records her life story as she fights to ensure that the disaster is not forgotten, to reunite her family and ‘find what it was I lost in the ocean'. Hope is an inspirational tale of family, and the search for a better life in Australia.
Rated M
Ages: 15+
No bookings required, just drop in!
Presented in partnership with Hunter Asylum Seeker Advocacy
Seeking Safety By Sea is community exhibition developed in collaboration with Hunter Asylum Seeker Advocacy. It contains works from renowned Australian artist and refugee advocate Kate Durham as well as artworks made by students from Cooks Hill School. Combining art, documentary footage and survivor testimony, Seeking Safety by Sea reflects on the SIEV X tragedy in order to remember the past and inspire hope for the future.
