Exodus: Our Journey to Europe

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Sociopolitical Documentary hosted by Paul Bown, published by BBC in 2016 - English narration

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Exodus: Our Journey to Europe Twelve months ago, the production team began giving camera phones to people attempting to reach Europe, escaping war, poverty or persecution. They were prepared to film where regular film crews could not go: on the inflatable dinghies crossing from Turkey to Greece, in the back of lorries entering the Eurotunnel, or on open trucks driven by people smugglers across the Sahara.

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The first edition features 11-year-old Isra'a, who is selling blackmarket cigarettes so that her extended family can pay smugglers to take them across the Mediterranean on a dinghy, while 27-year-old Hassan is fleeing imprisonment and torture in his native Damascus and is desperate to make the crossing at all costs In Syria, we film 24-year-old Anas as he prepares to leave the shattered city of Aleppo, with snipers firing at his departing taxi as he heads towards the Turkish border. And we meet Ahmad who, having left his wife and young family behind is racing to get to Britain so he can get them out of their besieged town in Syria. But he's stalled on Kos as the Greek island is overwhelmed and the authorities struggle to cope.

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Ahmad's journey continues in this second episode. A Syrian Kurd, he has reached Athens, and rather than take the long and uncertain over-land route through Europe, he negotiates with a smuggler for a fake passport that he can use to fly to France. With his wife and young daughters trapped in Syria, time is of the essence. In Calais, his first attempt to cross the Channel almost results in suffocation in a flour tanker. But he refuses to give up on Britain. Also leaving Athens is 24-year-old Sadiq from Afghanistan, fleeing Taliban repression and violence and heading to Finland - a country of which he's never even seen a picture.

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Syrian Kurd Ahmad's attempt to be smuggled into Britain in the back of a lorry finally pays off, and he is sent to Wakefield while his asylum claim is processed. Meanwhile, 21-year-old Alaigie prepares to leave Gambia to travel to Italy to find work; however his dangerous journey does not go as hoped. Twenty-seven-year-old Hassan, who survived the sinking of his dinghy in the Mediterranean, has reached Calais, but every attempt to board a train or lorry is thwarted. Filmed by both production and the refugees themselves, the result is a terrifyingly intimate yet uniquely epic portrait of the biggest movement of people that Europe has seen since World War II.