Chauka, Please Tell Us The Time

Documentary collaboration between an Iranian-Kurdish journalist detainee and an Iranian-Dutch filmmaker, made with footage from a mobile phone.

"Filmmaker Arash Kamali Sarvestani and journalist Behrouz Boochani shared a love of cinema. They decided to create a unique record of daily life in the Manus Island detention centre. Boochani secretly captured footage on his mobile phone, sending it to The Netherlands to be shaped into a narrative. He filmed detainees phoning anxious relatives, ambulances arriving and fences being erected around the ramshackle camp. Their intention was "to document the situation so that in the future no political leader can present a distorted narration of the events" (The Saturday Paper). The film's title is a reference to an endemic bird that calls at a regular time – ironically marking out the days." (Sydney Film Festival)

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