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Short Film on Brutal Reality of Palestinian Refugee in Greece

Xenos_filmA short film by Palestinian filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel depicting the horrific life of a Palestinian refugee in recession-stricken Greece, makes the rounds in film festivals across the world.
The 12-minute long documentary entitled “Xenos” (foreigner, stranger in Greek), shows refugee Abu Eyad and his squalid life along with his Arab friends in Athens. It has been presented in film festivals in Toronto, Stockholm, Sheffield, Abu Dhabi and Busan.
When Eyad and his friends fled the Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon in 2010, his dream was to go west and find his paradise. They crossed to Syria, then Turkey and made their way to Greece.
Recession-stricken Greece was not the paradise he was wishing for. He came face to face with the brutal reality of a country succumbing under austerity and a frightened, despairing populace. Disillusionment was almost instant and despair settled in gradually. There are no jobs for Greeks, much less immigrants who don’t speak the language and carry the “dirty foreigner” stigma. He soon descended into a life of drug use, petty theft and prostitution, while retaining his code of honor: Even in desperation, he refuses to resort to mugging to put some food on his makeshift table.
Still, he prefers this western “hell” than his home: “I wish Israel would just massacre us all. We destroyed ourselves. I don’t want to return to Palestine,” he says in anger.
“Xenos” is the unofficial follow-up to Fleifel’s moving and controversial full-length documentary “A World Not Ours,” in which he described Eyad’s dreams and harsh life in the refugee camp.

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