Mighty Afrin: In the Time of Floods
In the desolate wilderness of the disappearing islands along the Brahmaputra River, 12-year-old orphan, Afrin, is coming of age. Filmed over five years as heavy rainfalls and flood waters ravage Afrin’s island, the film captures her refusal to surrender to Bangladesh’s deadly tides. As Afrin rows her wooden boat toward the teeming metropolis of Dhaka, she attempts to find her estranged father, only to find herself among the millions of new climate refugees.
The films of Angelos Rallis push the boundaries between raw reality and fiction. He draws inspiration from his own life experiences and revolve around unconventional family constructs, post-traumatic behaviour, loss and fate. His visual and artistic approach resides somewhere between contemplative cinema, theatre and creative documentary with fictional aesthetics. The long takes and extended durations permit the director to depict the characters, framed by their immediate environment, in detail. His work induces a sense of slowness so that the viewer has time to understand and connect with the characters and to become immersed in the events unfolding before them.
