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The film’s narrative can be seen as the viewer being guided on a journey through the refugee assistance projects, rather than a ‘hero’s journey’, that culminates in a crisis, climax and resolution. The reason that this approach has been chosen is simply that it seems to be the most effective way to answer the question posed by the film, which is ‘what is an assistance programme to support peoples displaced by violent conflict actually like’?
The final version of the film will start with an introduction that explains that the central protagonist of the film is the ‘eternal refugee’, and that the inciting incident for his/her journey is the abandonment of home for an unknown destination. It will also be made clear that our protagonist on a day-to-day basis has to deal with a broad range of antagonistic forces, and that the projects explored in the film seek to mitigate these. As such the average viewer should hopefully be ‘hooked’ and wish to watch further.
After the intro, the film consists of ten ‘vignettes’ of the projects of the UN Refugee Agency in Azerbaijan at the time of filming, which like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fit together to answer the film’s central question.
Each individual vignette aims to show what each project is all about by making clear what the project’s overall objective is, what are it’s individual activities, and who are it’s beneficiaries. This is done in a different way each time for variety, taking into account the particularities of each project.
The film’s action starts early on Monday morning and continues through to Friday afternoon with one project profiled in the morning, and one in the afternoon as in the following list:
1. Monday morning: The Protection Unit of UNHCR
2. Monday afternoon: State Committee for Refugees Status Determination Department
3. Tuesday morning: Primary and Secondary Education for IDPs (Internally Displaced People)
4. Tuesday afternoon: The Refugee Women’s and Children’s Centre
5. Wednesday morning: Social Assessment of the Refugees’ Assistance Needs
6. Wednesday afternoon: Humanitarian Assistance Distribution
7. Thursday morning: Primary Health Care
8. Thursday afternoon: Shelter Project
9. Friday morning: Income Generation Activities
10. Friday afternoon: Ramazan Festival at the Women and Children’s Centre
The nationalities and ethnicity of the project beneficiaries, as well as location and date of filming are deliberately not given in order to give a universal and timeless feel of any refugee assistance operation at any time.
Approach
The approach taken by the film is hybrid, and is made up of the following parts:
• Frozen Screen with title of each vignette
At the start of each vignette the first frame of the sequence is frozen with the vignette’s title. Each sequence ends with a frozen screen that then fades out, so there is a slight pause for viewers before the next piece starts.
• Narration/voice over backed by relevant footage
Narration/voice over backed by appropriate shots with natural sound from each shoot location, will guide the viewer through the film. This helps to tie things together, and explains necessary background that does not come from interview or observational footage.
• Interview
Excerpts from Interview with individuals convey much of the important information in each vignette.
• Observational footage
There are observational sections in two of the vignettes.
• Music and animation
These are not envisaged at present, though I am happy to explore this possibility for future versions of the film.
