User:Werldwayd/Articles-Test191

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Refugee's Welcome is a 2017 short film written and directed by Canadian director Bruce LaBruce. It showed in a number of film festivals and was launched for general viewing on March 9, 2017. The 20-minute film is in collaboration with Erika Lust's XConfessions, a crowdsourcing venture for erotica short films and presentations.

Background

The film tries to shed some light about the rising tide of Middle Eastern refugees to Europe focussing on the sexual awakening of a young Arab refugee man to his gay identity amidst a very risky alien society and ominous racial attitudes towards refugees. The lead actor embarks on a journey where he, an Arab refugee will confront these outer dangers and his inner desires. Konbini describes it as a "beautiful and moving portrait of homosexual lust" and "a tender portrait of gay sex among some of the globe's most vulnerable people that is as thoughtful as it is provocative".

Bruce LaBruce says in an interview with the Filmmaker magazine: "My film is a liberal sexual fantasy, so although it supports the idea of welcoming refugees from other countries, it does so using porn conventions, including a quite long, sexually explicit scene that is also very romantic. But because it's a porn, it becomes a politically incorrect treatment of a politically correct subject". Because of some of the overt sexuals scenes in the short, Berlinale rejected to include the short film in its programming.

In another interview, this time with the site the international pop culture website kombini.com, LaBruce explains: "The emphasis in the media is always placed on a minority of refugees who commit sexual assault or other crimes, but to have a refugee character who is a poet, and homosexual, and who is shown explicitly having sex, and falling in love, is something completely different".

Synopsis

The film is about Moonif, a young Syrian refugee boy (played by Jesse Charif). Moonif leaves the refugee camp near Berlin and wanders the streets of Berlin where he feels a complete alien. He attends a literary session run by a small Berlin club where a Czech punk poet Von Roháč and a refugee himself (sometimes identified as Pig Boy or as Ruben Litzky). Pig Boy is reading some of his own poetry in the club. Moonif is attracted to him as he himself is an aspiring poet and has written some poetry in Arabic. An immediate sexual rapport is established between the two as Roháč notices Moonif coming in.

On his way out of the club, Moonif is confronted by a group of German skinheads who rough him up and then assault him physically. Hearing the commotion, Pig Boy comes out of the club and confronts the skinheads and rescues Moonif from there hands, then carries him to his own room where he takes care of him. And as Moonif starts reciting some of his own poems, Pig Boy makes sexual advances that develops into a gay sex scene, although LaBruce toned it down to make it acceptable as mainstream film. The couple wake up to the sounds of church bells and mosque adhans (Muslim call for prayer) in Berlin.

External links

• Werldwayd/Articles-Test191 at IMDb

Category:2017 short films