Destinacija_Serbistan

The Serbian asylum system has to deal every day with dozens of cases from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Ghana and other remote countries. Difficult travelling conditions, trafficking, human rights abuses - these are only some of the obstacles that asylum seekers face before entering Serbia, on their year-long path to freedom. Želimir Žilnik’s docu-drama, written in collaboration with his protagonists, follows the lives of illegal migrants and asylum-seekers who are housed in refugee centers in Serbia following dramatic flights from war and destitution. They neither speak the languages of the countries they have to cross on their way into the unknown, nor do they know the names of the smugglers they have to rely on. It’s nothing but natural those people have powerful stories to tell. This is how life can be for the people stranded against their will in the Balkans: Žilnik tells it with panache and accompanied by music, in an attempt to build some new credibility for them as individual human beings, beyond the victim label. Will Serbia be just a stopover or could they, perhaps, settle down and start a new life here? (Doc Alliance Films)