The Difficulties of Being a Refugee

Running on Sand, directed by Adar Shafran, is a wonderfully compelling film about refugees in Israel --  how they are treated, the racism that they experience, and the harsh reality of the immigration police and how they track these people down in order to deport them.  In Israel, these refugees are called ‘foreign workers’, a term which denies their political status, and they are all grouped together which makes them basically invisible.

Aumari is an easy-going fellow from Eritrea. He is a long-distance runner, and from the opening sequence, it seems that he ran across all of the desert to reach the border with Israel.  He has been living in Israel for five years, washing dishes for a living, surviving in a shared apartment with other refugees, waiting for his younger brother to join him.  One day, he is caught by the immigration police who want to send him to Uganda. Aumari is frightened that the Ugandans will ship him back to Eritrea, which he knows is a death sentence.

Using his wits, Aumari is able to outsmart the immigration police at the airport.  But he runs into a new complication when he is greeted by the fans of Maccabi Netanya’s soccer team, who are awaiting the arrival of their newest player from Nigeria.  Overnight, he becomes a big soccer star.  But he doesn’t really know or understand the rules of soccer. And thus begins the really compelling part of the film.

As Aumari is trying to make the situation work for him, the film turns into a comedy.  In fact, there are some buffoons on the soccer team, who help with the comic elements – such as the German player who is constantly repeating the swear words in Hebrew and Arabic, and the religious fellow who likes to instruct everyone in the Torah by telling them that you must love the stranger in your midst! 

Aumari is a special type of fellow, able to befriend people, make people laugh, and he succeeds in helping the captain of the team understand how to get everyone to work together.  He even develops a special relationship with the somewhat quirky daughter of the owner of the team. But Aumari understands that permanent status in Israel is elusive and he must return to being a refugee.

It is interesting to note that the remarkable African actors in the film who are playing refugees are actually refugees themselves.

Running on Sand is available from Picture Tree International.