13/12/2023 - In the rich and diverse programme of Ljubljana’s Animateka International Animated Film Festival, three films stood out for transcending questions of immigration, borders and humanity

Through different historical and geographical contexts, four short animated films in the Animateka International Animated Film Festival tackle the topic of immigration, adopting an aesthetic and critical approach to help us understand one of the most essential physical spaces in immigration and displacement: borders. 

Each of the films follows a protagonist’s journey to cross a border, whether a forest, a sea, a shore or a desert. All are physical spaces which individuals try to cross on the way to their destination. However, not all of the film's characters are immigrants; some are people who happen to live near a border or willingly decide to be physically present. 

In Adela Kaczmarek's 2023 short animation Magda, the main character is a 15-year-old girl in Nazi-occupied Poland, whose skiing skills allow her to work with the Resistance to "smuggle" fugitives and soldiers into Slovakia. Magda's decision to resist the German occupation and break the Gestapo-laid "rules" is fuelled by what she witnessed as a child when learning about the atrocities committed against the Jewish population in Poland. 

Kaczmarek's storytelling is based on an interview and the real voice of Magda, who joined the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. The border serves as a place where Magda's determination to violate Gestapo's restrictions is tested, brilliantly animated in chase scenes between Magda and even more accomplished Gestapo skiers.

In a different Europe, post-2015, Szymon Ruczyński's There Are People In The Forest - set in a quiet, mundane, and most probably freezing forest between Poland and Belarus - depicts a large-scale military operation aimed at thwarting refugees seeking safe haven and shelter from repressive regimes. This could easily be an anecdote told in thousands of news stories. 

Luckily, Ruczyński's home village is close to the forest in question. His film doesn’t only tell the victims’ story, based on real events, through simple yet powerful animation buoyed by poetry, it also tells that of the perpetrators (one official and several vigilantes) with their attack dogs, tanks and deadly machine guns aimed at "restoring order". Themes of solidarity are carefully conveyed through the film’s animation, highlighting one local family's decision to provide aid, thereby breaking the "rules" and, in some cases, allowing victims to be "smuggled" across the border. The political dynamics of border crossing in Ruczynski's and Kaczmarek's films differ, but we’re left to draw parallels between these individuals who take risks to stand up for and be the voice of other human beings in unfortunate situations. 

On another continent, the main character's sights are also set on Europe, Italy this time round. Margherita Giusti's The Meat Seller follows Selinna Ajamikoko, a young but old Nigerian woman. By documenting her trip from Nigeria through Niger, Libya, and then on to Italy, Giusti allows Ajamikoko to tell her own story, giving her agency over her narrative. As she waits to be "smuggled" by boat across the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy, she falls into a cycle of abuse at the hands of Libyan smugglers and militias, both financially and sexually speaking, an experience captured brilliantly by Giusti and her animation team. Depicted as a buffalo in that particular scene, our protagonist finds herself trapped and ravished by a pack of wolves, highlighting the terror of such experiences which have been reported by hundreds of African women waiting to cross the Mediterranean through North Africa. Here, the border bears witness to a lack of humanity and is a reminder of the many sacrifices migrants are forced to make to reach safety. 

The Meat Seller, however, goes above and beyond borders, following the protagonist's desire to work as a butcher, heal different traumas and, eventually, prosper in life. In Italy, she is taken care of in a foster home to give her a chance at living her teenage life. In many ways, her destiny is brighter than the protagonist of There Are People In The Forest. But we’d hope they’d be given the same opportunities. 

At a time when Europe is becoming increasingly polarised over migration, watching these films and engaging with their discourse is crucial, not only in order to problematise far-right anti-refugee agendas (whether the refugees are Arabs, Turks, Africans, or Belarusians) but also to humanise asylum seekers and give them a voice. To see these films in Animateka offers additional proof that animation isn’t just a medium to narrate personal stories centred around the filmmakers, it’s also a tool for artists to shed light on the chaotic world around them and reinterpret history. And, above all, to give agency to marginalised people. 

Whether it’s the concrete gates enclosing the Gaza Strip, dark forests in Poland and Belarus, smugglers’ trucks heading for North Macedonia, German rescue boats in the Mediterranean Sea, barbed-wire fences on the Texan riverbank used to trap Mexican families, or even the welcome centre for Ukrainian refugees in Berlin Central Bus Station, borders, or physical spaces which humans escape to in order to flee annihilation, worsening conditions, repression and war, continue to be the areas where human solidarity is put to the test, where civil society flourishes and where "rules" are called into question.