At the time of Migration 4.0, a European project supporting foreign unaccompanied minors that exploits the driving power of technological innovation as a means for cultural integration.
RE-FUTURE is one of the 12 selected projects, among over 300 ones, by the European Commission Creative Europe Program supporting the integration of refugees and was realized within a partnership among various European organizations: Dugong Films (Italy), AccoglieRete (Italy), International Telematic University UNINETTUNO (Italy), Infinity Edge (Italy), Picofilm (France), Shoot&Post (Sweden), Asi Film (Turkey) and Road Movie (Italy).
The initiative takes origin from the meeting among the Dugong Films, an Italian video production company that coordinates the project, the Sicilian association AccoglieRete, working at the support of unaccompanied foreign minors and the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO which has always been engaged in international cooperation projects also with countries in North Africa, Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa and which in 2016 created the University for Refugees. The project sees also the participation of a network of five partners working in the field of video and cinema production.
The project objective is that of unveiling the actual context of integration through the eyes of the migrating unaccompanied minors by using the universal language of image and to raise awareness among citizens as regards their problems.
Re-Future (a crasis between refugee and future) involved twenty refugee minors, supported by AccoglieRete. During a 8-month workshop, these young immigrants were trained by the Milanese director, Andrea Caccia, in the use of the language of image and in the practice of filmmaking in order to stir up their attention and help them filming their situation using their smartphones as a shooting tool to tell about their daily life, their stories and the integration experience.
Technology changed the XXI Century immigrants into “digital immigrants” and the smartphone actually is for them an indispensable good to lead their own life, the only link between what they leave and what is expecting them. A tool to discover the country hosting them, keep in touch with their family of origin and start new relationships with the place of arrival.
The videos realized by the young immigrants and the workshop experience converged in the documentary movie “TUMARANKÉ, a Re-Future project”, produced by the Dugong Films in coproduction with Offf, Road Movie, Picofilms and Shoot&Post. Tumaranké in the Bambara language means: “leaving one’s own country looking for a better future”.
The films of the migrating minors resulted into a intimate and surprising diary, a cutaway of their life in Italy, of their life in the hosting community, of school, dreams, weaknesses and also of their times of loneliness, of their longing for home and people now far away. Day after day, hosted in a new country, they learn a language and discover and make others discover a culture for possible inclusion laying the foundations for a shared future.
The films realized by unaccompanied refugee minors were the object of study of a research work under the supervision of the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO conducted by a working team including lecturers and researchers of the Psychology Faculty. This research, structured on several steps, started with an analysis of the network of online comments made by Italian citizens of the issue of integration and then it analyzed the content of almost 700 films. Then, the research team carried on an analysis of the their emotional impact on a sample of viewers, citizens of the hosting country. The research final step, which is underway, is focused on the analysis of the emotional and affective reactions that the whole documentary film arises among the viewers.