NEWS PHOTO MO CRANKER
Hatters look on at a screening of I Am Rohingya, a documentary about 14 Rohingya youth and their families who escape from Burma.
mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@MHNmocranker
More than 600 Hatters flocked to the Esplanade Thursday for two showings of I Am Rohingya – A Genocide in Four Acts, a documentary about the journey of 14 refugee youth and a reenactment of their journeys as refugees.
“This is a feature-length documentary about a number of different people and how they fled the violence in Burma and Bangladesh,” said director Yusuf Zine. “The kids used their acting skills to reenact a lot of the more troubling and harrowing memories of what it was like for them and their parents to be refugees.”
Before the evening showing Candace Loder of the Esplanade spoke, as did Elizabeth Thomson with Saamis Immigration and Peggy Revell of the Medicine Hat Women’s Shelter Society.
The documentary has been touring for more than a year and it has made stops across the country. Zine says he was happy to fly in from Toronto for the screenings.
“It’s been a year and a half since it came out and for me, it’s amazing that it’s still touring,” he said. “We had a showing in Halifax a while ago and there it was paired up with the Refuge exhibit – now it’s here in Medicine Hat and paired up with that exhibit once again.”
Roughly 600 people showed up for a morning screening Thursday, with many more pouring through the Esplanade for showings late last week.
“Seeing everyone in here and being engaged by the film has been amazing,” Zine said. “The students asked such smart questions and even stayed a bit late because they had so many to ask.”
