Academy Award-winning Australian filmmaker Eva Orner’s Chasing Asylum, which will be screened throughout the nation in coming weeks exposes the torturous conditions of Australia’s offshore detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru. Filmed in secret, advocates and whistle blowers speak first-hand of the systemised neglect and abuse of the government’s treatment of people seeking asylum.
The documentary comes after after two detainees on Nauru set themselves alight in despair and protest; one has died and the other is in a critical condition. And it comes only days after Immigration Minister Peter Dutton wrongly blamed these acts and the epidemic of self-harm on those who advocate a change in Australia’s policy. The film reveals why people are in such despair.
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre will screen the documentary to raise awareness of the plight of people who seek safety on our shores, and also to raise funds to meet it’s five-fold increase in demand for it’s services. As the largest organisation of it’s kind which provides free emergency legal assistance, approximately 11,000 people seeking asylum in Victoria will be looking to the ASRC in the next 12 months to have their claims heard, and lodged.
The event fundraiser takes place at Cinema Nova Carlton, at 4pm, 28th May and includes a Q&A panel with film director, Eva Orner, and a host of representatives from the ASRC.
Tickets are $25 and be purchased here.
To find out more about ASRC, go to www.asrc.org.au.
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