the participants

In a climate of fear and paranoia, the simplistic nature of mass news media accounts is often exploited for political ends. The personal, human stories get lost in representations that do not allow for the complexity of individuals’ circumstance.

The purpose of this project was to create a documentary film that gave insight to the humanity behind news stories of refugees that tended to show events through 10-second sound grabs and images of conflict and chaos. While operating in the tradition of advocacy films, it was important that the project not be “made on behalf of people who are never consulted” (MacDougall, 1999, p159). Therefore, from the outset, Out of Fear was conceived to maximise collaboration. The five participants were involved at various stages so that they played an active role in deciding how they were represented.

Significantly, however, their involvement was contingent upon their anonymity being maintained. Not just for fear of persecution by groups from their home countries but also because of the very provisional nature of their Temporary Protection Visas. One person had also already experienced a backlash from his own community in Australia for speaking out in the media. His local community felt his actions had exposed them to harassment from the Department of Immigration. So, we agreed to find ways to present their stories that did not divulge their identity.

As collaborators we therefore had to work together to deal with the particular challenges of finding ways to convey the participants’ humanity without identifying them. There were also issues relating to cross cultural communication that needed to be negotiated, specifically in terms of subtitling and construction of subjectivity. The project was able to explore the process of representing stories across cultures and the difficulties of articulating experiences when you are displaced from the world you knew and understood.

For more information contact:
Bettina Frankham by email: