FRIENDLY ENEMY ALIEN

(D 2005/2006) 90 mins / colour / Digi-Beta / 16:9

Dir.: John Burgan

Producer: Gunter Hanfgarn

Funds: Filmstiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen + Filmförderung Hamburg

Coproducers TV: ZDF/Kleines Fernsehspiel

FESTIVALS:

Duisburger Filmtage (Germany) 2005

New Berlin Film Award (Germany) 2006 (“Best Documentary”)

Contra Costa Film Festival, Oakland, USA 2007

FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DU FILM DOCUMENTAIRE OCÉANIEN 2008

SYNOPSIS:

In August 2001 a Norwegian captain rescues 400 Afghan refugees from a sinking ferry and tries to take them to Christmas Island. Australian Special Forces are sent to prevent the ship from landing. Four years later many of the refugees are still locked away. Sixty years earlier the prison ship HMT Dunera left Liverpool with 2.542 Austrians, Germans and Italians on board. Refugees from Hitler, they had been told they were going to Canada, but 8 weeks later they arrived in Sydney having been systematically robbed and beaten by their British guards. After a further year imprisoned, Churchill admitted a mistake and set them free. The case was so sensitive that the files were sealed till 2041. "Friendly Enemy Aliens" in a time of war: where do they belong, whose purpose do they serve? Friends, enemies, aliens - can one be all at once ?