Verzio DocLab 2016

The second Verzio Doclab took place in November 9-12, 2016 in cooperation with the Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, the Visual Studies Platform and the CEU Library's Mirabaud Media Lab, focusing on the theme: "Roads to Integration".

The short films created in the course of the intensive workshop looked into ways people from different cultures, backgrounds, and religions can live together. Powerful stories of perseverance, solidarity, and multiple challenges were told by the participants. Stories from their communities, focusing on people who had to strike new roots and reflecting on their journeys or experiences about their new home. An international team of filmmakers, editors, and human rights experts offered guidance and mentorship in structuring, editing, and post-production. Read more about the 2016 Verzio Doclab here: https://vsp.ceu.edu/article/2016-09-07/call-participation-filmmaking-workshop

Olha's Italian Diary created by Olena Fedyuk and Melinda Sukosd is about a migrant woman whose life is packed with turning points enough to fill up a few telenovelas and yet, it is so similar to the lives of many women of such background – Ukrainian care workers in Italy. She believes in love and thinks it is possible to find a beautiful romantic relationship even at the age of 57. The short film is an intimate sneak-peek into one of the contemporary taboo topics: intimate lives of the female migrants away from home. Will Olha be able to give Naples a chance and find a true feeling among the condemnation and suspicion?


Flotation by Alesandra Tatić takes places in Majdanpek, Eastern Serbia. Colorful Socialist apartment blocks face the mine, hearth of the town’s economy. When not toiling under the earth, the workers spend their free time in the hills and forests following the same pastimes as generations before them: digging for treasure and hunting dragons. Flotation (Flotacija) is an excerpt from the film Dragan hunt, peeking into the peculiar work conditions the population is exposed to by necessity.

Kurdish Lullaby by Ania Domanska is short film - music video. The lullaby is sung by Yousef Abdi Alhousani, a Kurdish person from Syria, sung in refugee camps in Greece (Pireus and Skaramaga).

My Open Prison by Karin Schuitema is about the Kurdish 44-year-old Hüseyin, who has been a political refugee in Athens for thirteen years. Before undertaking the cross-border journey to Greece he spent seven years in jail in Turkey. The film intends to focus on his reflections of the seven years spent in prison, and to give expression to his internal dialogue and changing world views, his dreams and spirituality, while still living in an open prison nowadays, through a collage of mesmerizing images.

Another Life by Kati Egely shows fragments of the life of a barber, originally from Iraq, currently living and working in Budapest.

Sleepless Bat by Iulius-Cezar Macarie is a story of a migrant night shift worker in London, trapped like a sleepless bat blinded by the powerful lights of the 24-hour city, not knowing which way to escape.

Train It Till You Make It! by Gervai Gábor is a short movie about a boxing club organised by Menedék - Migránsokat Segítő Egyesület in Budapest. "What happens when refugees and locals gather to do boxing? Will they manage to overcome their fears and stereotypes? Can boxing help to build connections? Can it be a peaceful activity at all? Answers directly from the gym.