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Refugee Week

To mark Refugee Week, BFI and Counterpoints Arts have compiled a collection of films that explore refugee experiences across continents and generations

From First World War newsreels to 21st Century online video, these works bear witness to displacement across the globe.

Refugee Week is an international festival of arts, cultural and educational events that celebrate the contributions and diversity that refugees bring, and encourages a better understanding between communities.

13 items in this collection
John Krish's deeply compassionate documentary on the resettlement of refugees in Britain; made to mark World Refugee Year 1959.

Return to Life

  • 1960
A Hungarian refugee attempts to navigate 1950s London with no English, little money and only an address on a postcard for guidance.

Refuge England

  • London
  • 1959
There's something reminiscent in this home movie from the 1930s – with refugees escaping from a distant civil war to find safety in England

Basque Refugees at Stoneham and a Holiday to Lands End

  • 1937-01-01
Fascinating, sometimes harrowing record of life in camps run by international aid agencies following the bombing of Shanghai by the Japanese.

Refugees in Shanghai Their Life and Their Education

  • Shanghai
  • 1945
Heart-rending British appeal film for funds to ease suffering of China's orphaned children and starving millions after Japanese invasion.

Aid to China

  • 1945
Powerful newsreel images of displaced Serbians seeking help at a British military base during WWI.

British Nurses in Serbia

  • 1915-11-24
Scenes of panic on the streets of Shanghai as Chinese citizens seek protection from Communist and Kuomintang violence behind Allied barricades.

A City of Chaos

  • Shanghai
  • 1927-04-07
Belgian soldiers and civilian refugees gather in Ostend in early WWI, before evacuating to England.

Ostend in War-Time

  • 1914-10-24
How did Taiwan cope with the huge influx of Chinese refugees from the mainland after the war? This report explains why the island is a symbol of hope for all developing countries.

Formosa - Island of Promise

  • 1951
Powerful online video from a refugee NGO using ingenious film techniques

Let Refugees Learn

  • 2017

Class of '87 - Phuong

  • Derby
  • 1987-07-22

Impressions of Exile

  • 1985

A Place in Mind

  • 2003