Les Sauteurs – Those Who Jump

Documentary about refugees outside the Spanish enclave of Melilla who are waiting for an opportunity to cross the heavily fortified EU external border – disturbingly topical!

From Mount Gurugu, one looks down on the Spanish enclave of Melilla, where a heavily fortified border fence separates Africa from the European Union. Refugees live in the surrounding forests, waiting for an opportunity to cross the border.One of them is Abou Bakar Sidibé from Mali. After 14 months in the informal camp, he begins filming himself: his everyday life, the community and the exhausting wait for the next “jump” towards the supposed Eldorado of Europe. LES SAUTEURS creates a unique shift of perspective. The anonymous gaze of surveillance cameras is countered by the subjective view of a person documenting his own reality of life at the edge of a sealed-off EU.

Film by Moritz Siebert, Estephan Wagner, Abou Bakar Sidibé, DK 2016, 79 min.