Nachbarn / Neighbors

In 2015, the German newspaper ZEIT recorded 224 arson attacks on refugee camps with almost no conviction. The same year, there were more than 700 incidents of Molotov cocktails thrown into, gunshots fired at, or deliberate flooding and damage of refugee facilities. In 2016 the Amadeu-Antonio Foundation counted 3,767 attacks on refugees and their homes, including 116 arson attacks.

The database of arson attacks against refugee shelters, since then, is sparse. Amnesty International has confirmed that the German police will ignore racist motives behind such attacks, and fail to find the perpetrators. At the same time, the police confirm that the perpetrators’ profiles have changed. They are no longer from the classical ranks of right-wing extremists, but rather among ordinary citizens, sometimes from the shelters’ immediate vicinity. Sometimes they are “neighbors”.

We have therefore asked such questions: ‘What do the neighbors think of the arson attacks?’ ‘How do you recall the attacks?’ ‘How do you narrate the neighborhood and the crime?’

This documentary film is aimed at a broad audience, young and old. The subject of violence against refugees is an ongoing socio-political concern. The film invites viewers to watch closely and listen carefully: How is violence trivialized? How are these crimes suppressed or even denied? We would like to screen the film at international festivals, as well as at relevant cultural and educational institutions. We hope the film inspires discussion around the themes of racism, violence, and fear of the ‘Other’.

If it is important to you that such a documentary of continuing political relevance appears on the big screen, then supporting our film "Neighbors" is in your interest.

The film was invited to the Duisburger Filmwoche. If we reach our financing goal we can provide a professional sound design, sound mix as well as a color correction of the film. Only with that kind of post production the film can be screened in its full quality.