A few hours into Hassan Akkad’s crossing from Turkey to Greece in an overcrowded dinghy, he realises things are not looking good for him, or the 50 other refugees squeezed in beside him. He notices that there is half a foot of water in the boat. Gradually, the mounting alarm is caught on camera, as Akkad films the doomed journey on a hidden camera.
A woman hugs her two children and says to her fellow passengers, who are piled on top of each other: “For God’s sake, guys, stop moving!” Another woman complains: “You are very heavy and you are sitting on my leg.” A further refugee, looking uncertainly out at rippling waves, says: “Thank God, the sea is fine.” Another suggests they all pray. “Returning to the lord is our final destiny,” they say in unison. “Peace be upon us.”
We’ve read about these terrible crossings too many times in the past year, but this is the first time footage has revealed so powerfully what is it like to be on a sinking boat, the engine no longer working, drifting somewhere between Greece and Turkey. The passengers study their mobile phones to see where they are, and whether they have crossed into Greek water. A while later, someone asks: “Is water still coming in?” Somehow Akkad manages to manoeuvre his phone so he captures the rising water levels between a tangle of legs. Soon, half the passengers are out of the boat, hanging on to the edges, trying in vain to bale out the water with small plastic water bottles.
The desperation of such refugees has become a familiar element of news bulletins, but what is different about Exodus – an extraordinary three-part documentary to be broadcast next week on BBC2 – is the way the film is pieced together with footage shot by refugees as they document their own journey. We are with them every step – as they negotiate with the people smugglers for a crossing to Greece (“€2,000 per person, kids half price, every kid under two-and-a-half goes free”), as their dinghy capsizes, as they climb in the back of the container lorries to be smuggled under the Channel, and find themselves near to suffocation when things do not go to plan.
Not even the most cavalier of documentary crews have been ready to hop into the unseaworthy rubber boats that ferry hundreds of migrants across the Mediterranean every night. Even if they were prepared to take the risk, the people smugglers, who are naturally publicity averse, would prohibit filming. The heroes of the documentary are Akkad and the other refugees who agreed to film their journey on camera phones, exposing themselves to even greater risks. Their bravery has helped create the most powerful and moving account of the refugee crisis to date.
Watching the footage of his narrow escape in a sinking boat is painful for Akkad, but he hopes the exercise will prove worthwhile if the film helps educate viewers about the crisis. “When you watch the news and see the movement of millions of people, you don’t identify with any of them. I wanted to humanise the story. I want people to understand what made us leave and what happened to us on the way.”
Akkad was an English teacher in Damascus before he was forced to flee after being jailed for taking part in an anti-government protest. His journey from Turkey to the UK took 87 days and he filmed all the way, risking the fury of traffickers who view cameras with profound suspicion. “For them the camera is like a Kalashnikov,” he says.
As attitudes towards migration shift and harden in the wake of the referendum, he hopes British politicians across the spectrum will see the film. “I cannot change politicians’ point of view, especially those who are anti-migration, but I hope they will watch and be more lenient.”
Exodus also follows Isra’a and her extended family, fleeing Syria after their home was bombed. She reveals what it feels like to be an 11-year-old Syrian girl, selling cigarettes illegally in a market square in Izmir, Turkey, to raise money for a place in an overcrowded dinghy bound for Greece. She helps us understand how it feels when your parents start arguing bitterly about the wisdom of putting a family of 16 people into a rubber boat.
The camera follows her as she and her father Tarek, as well as her siblings and cousins, prepare to leave for Greece, planning to make their way to Germany. She is a cheerful, smiling presence as the adults around her are torn apart by impossible decisions. She laughs when she recounts how the police slapped her recently, confiscating her father’s stock of cigarettes; we see her smiling, as she ducks into a side road and runs away from the police. We watch as she examines the best waterproof cases for mobile phones, in case the boat proves unseaworthy. The family shop for lifejackets and we see refugees discussing their concern that many of the lifejackets in the Turkish markets are fake, and actually help you to sink.
Isra’a claims she has no fear. If their boat were to capsize, she says her grandfather would rescue one sister, and her father would save the other. She says she knows how to save herself. Her father is terrified, having seen the images of Aylan Kurdi’s body being picked up on the shore, but he is trying to do the best for his family.
They abandoned a small restaurant in Syria to seek safety in Europe. Tarek finds the weight of the daily decision-making agonising. “I was against travelling by sea,” he says. “So many people die. My wife wants to go, I don’t want to go.” We see Isra’a, normally so upbeat, on the brink of tears as her parents argue. Finally her mother wins. “This is the hardest test of my life. We decided to take the dinghy, but my heart doesn’t feel good,” Tarek says. He has paid €12,000 for eight adults and eight children. Had they been able to take the ferry, it would have been safe and it would have cost €22 each.
The children claim they are calm. They have developed a disturbingly grim sense of perspective. “Nothing is scary. In Syria, the bombs were dropping on us,” one of them says. “At least in the grave we can rest,” another adds.
Director James Bluemel and producer Itab Azzam say that the film was extremely difficult to make – not for any shortage of subjects, but because it was so hard to keep track of the people to whom they had given camera phones. SIM cards stop working once they cross borders, and they occasionally lost contact with their subjects as they were swept in different directions through Europe.
Later, the film shows Isra’a’s elation at arriving safely in Greece (everyone has been crying and vomiting, Isra’a says) and captures the family’s almost instant sense of dismay as they look around and see scenes of squalor and chaos, families sleeping in the streets, no assistance on offer. Akkad says: “When we landed in Greece, our expectations didn’t align with reality. I thought there would be an organised structure, NGOs, volunteers.” He, like most refugees, has never previously experienced homelessness. “I was pampered in Damascus. I had my own room, my car. I never slept on the side of the road. I never went camping. I wanted to. I think I’ve done my share of camping now.”
Ahmad, an ex-English teacher from Aleppo who agreed to film for the BBC, says he tried to keep his spirits up when faced with the absence of a friendly welcome. “I convinced myself that the air smelt different from the Middle East, because you don’t want your hopes and dreams to let you down,” he says. Later he describes his sense of disillusionment when he finally arrives in England: “I survived Isis, I survived beheadings, Assad. I survived everything. I was almost killed – for a stupid idea called the UK.”
But Isra’a’s good spirits are apparently irrepressible. “It is fun walking in the rain,” she says, as they make slow progress on foot through Europe, her father carrying her severely disabled sister. It is only later, when she reflects on her journey from a position of safety, that she understands the enormity of what she has been through and begins to cry.
Akkad notices that the mood towards refugees has hardened in the months since he arrived in the UK, and he was particularly depressed by the Ukip Breaking Point poster, released a week before the referendum, showing queues of Syrian refugees crossing from Croatia to Slovenia.
“It broke my heart when I saw that poster. Those are traumatised people. They have been tortured, lost family members. These people could have been my neighbours. I hope this film will show people it’s not what you think. I hope my footage helps people understand that this is not an invasion.”
• Exodus is on BBC2, 11-13 July at 9pm.
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