Impact Days Catalogue
fifdh
By Kseniya Halubovich

I Made a Mistake Coming Here

Я зрабіў памылку, прыйшоўшы сюды
Я зрабіў памылку, прыйшоўшы сюды
Impact days 2023 Movie
IMPACT DAYS

November 2021, Belarus. Thousands of people from the Middle East have come in the hope of crossing the border into the European Union. Alexander Lukashenko, the country’s leader, “invited” them in order to create a migratory crisis at the EU borders. One Kurdish family decides not to risk their life and to apply for political asylum in Europe, helped by three Belarusian volunteers. These young women – an entrepreneur, a geologist and a journalist – do everything to make the family’s life better and risk their own safety to support them. While they discuss filial love together, homeland, culture and hope for freedom, arbitrary arrests become a daily occurrence in Belarus, and the three women are also forced to start contemplating exile.

Section : Impact Days
Country : Belarus, Ukraine, Poland
Original languages : Russian, Belarusian, English, Arabic, Kurdish
Director
Kseniya Halubovich (Belarus)
Producers
Daniel Schneider (Switzerland)
Louis Beaudemont (France)
Esther van Messel (Switzerland)
First Hand Films
Les Steppes Productions
Completion
January 2025
Impact Statement
This is a film about exiled people and the state's violence against them. It's also a film about Belarus, a country whose dictatorship is gradually sinking into a totalitarianism that the international community has yet to grasp. It’s a tribute to the migrants of yesterday, today and tomorrow. It is also a tool to highlight the cynical position of the leaders of dictatorships and also democratic states towards refugees, who are used as geopolitical weapons.
We want this film to contribute to holding accountable the Belarusian government for its demeaning and oppressive actions against asylum seekers and its own people.
Impact Goals
  1. Supporting Aziz’s family case to help them settle down in good conditions - it could pave the way for other migrants stuck in Belarus.
  2. To reveal the cynical strategy of political leaders who create or maintain a “migrant crisis” that has led to the death and displacement of thousands.
  3. Changing the ideas we have on ‘migration’ to ‘forced migration’, to highlight how it affects people on different levels.
  4. To reveal how the map of forced migrations has changed quickly over the last five years (Ukraine, Belarus, Asia).
Impact Strategy
  • Media campaign (gathering a coalition of journalists we can trust and that have already investigated migrants' rights worldwide) to raise awareness on the situation of Middle Eastern forced migrants in Belarus, and of Belarusian forced migrants in Europe. And to show how States use migration for geopolitical and internal political purposes.
  • Involve decision makers to raise the question of human trafficking created by the Belarusian government and to find tools to help forced migrants like Aziz's family.
  • Involve lawyers to consider what kind of prosecution can be launched against the government.
  • Support Aziz's family's legal situation and consider the security of the film crew and characters during the impact campaign and film distribution.
Contact
Primary contact
Louis Beaudemont (France): l.beaudemont@les-steppes.com

Organisations
Amnesty International
Reporters Without Borders – In talks

Funders
IMS – International Media Support – In talks

Organisations
Amnesty International
Reporters Without Borders – In talks

Funders
IMS – International Media Support – In talks