Beyond Home

In 2015, I watched the news with trepidation as the civil war in Syria intensified, causing millions to flee. Images of German citizens welcoming exhausted refugees at train stations with posters and water bottles saturated the television screen in my London home as chancellor Angela Merkel’s “Wir schaffen das - We can do this!” echoed around the world. Three years later, silence. How did the refugees experience life in Germany? Where were they now? While the media had moved on to new wars and crises, I embarked upon a PhD to explore what it feels like to be a stranger in my homeland, research that triggered the production of the feature film Beyond Home.

I focussed my investigation on the lives of Syrian refugee women as their stories had largely remained untold in the media. In Beyond Home, Nibal, Samar and Batoul make intimate observations of their new surroundings as they candidly discuss the meaning of home and exile. Through the portrayal of their friendships to locals, the film explores what it means to be forced to leave behind your culture, religion and language to build a new existence in somebody else’s idea of home. The passionate discussions among women, newcomers and locals, take place in kitchens, living rooms and back gardens, thus transforming the domestic sphere into a space of cross-cultural conversation where the women debate racism, religion, women’s rights. The women embraced the opportunity to collaborate to portray their relationships on-screen and together we figured out how to stage and record each encounter.

I did not expect to develop close friendships with Batoul, Nibal and Samar. However, as we spent a lot of time together, we grew closer. I followed the Syrian women into their homes; together, we drank numerous cups of Arabic coffee, baked Fatayer, took ferries, rode on trains and buses, went shopping and climbed mountains. I was struck by their strengths, grace and most of all, by their sense of humour. Beyond Home does not depict the Muslim refugees as victims but as citizens from whom German society can hugely benefit, thus directly challenging anti-migrant notions. Many regions of Germany are steeped in Islamophobia as shown by by the outcome of the local election in Thuringia in September 2024 where the far-right party AFD received the majority of the votes.

The atmosphere in Beyond Home is depicted with mesmerising visuals of the small medieval town of Altena and the tiny North-Sea island of Föhr. Landscapes are juxtaposed with sensory imagery of the women’s homes to emphasise the contrast between inside and outside. An exquisite musical composition that employs carefully selected instruments such as the pocket sax and Arabic goat bells emphasises characters and develops emotions in this immersive film.

Beyond Home encourages the spectators to continue the on-screen conversations in their communities and consider their reactions towards those who were forced to flee their home. Most importantly, this film encourages the audience to see their own country through the eyes of a stranger.