This overwhelmingly sad and chilling drama is the story of Tania, an undocumented immigrant and her 13 year old son who have escaped from Russia and for the past few years have been carving out a new life in Belgium. Tania is paranoid about getting caught, and one day as she and the child momentarily drop their guard an chat in their native tongue, she gets arrested. The son escapes but Tania is placed in a grim Detention Centre where she refuses to divulge her identity hoping that the Authorities will eventually let her go. Eventually she gives in to her captors and gives them a fake name as she ‘borrows’ the identity of her friend, who being from Belarus qualifies to claim for Political Asylum, but unbeknownst her friend has a record and now Tania is set for compulsory deportation.
Like most of all the other inmates in this bleak Detention Centre, Tania never gives up hope of being reunited with her son, but her shaky confidence gives way to sheer depression when one of her new immigrant friends feels that she had been beaten up by the guards once too and often commits suicide.
This deeply disturbing and penetrating movie is shot mainly in the prison-like Detention center and uses a hand held camera that closely follow the main characters which makes this shocking story seem even more intense. It is loosely based on a real incident of suicide of an African immigrant which caused a major outcry in Belgium and they allegedly ceased the inhuman and violent practice of compulsory deportations. In fact the Belgian Authorities have already been censured 5 times by the European Human Court for permitting this to occur, but that has not stopped them vehemently decrying this film as being completely inaccurate.
A stunning portrayal of a very engrossing and scary subject and full credit to Belgian actress Anne Coesens for her stunning and sobering performance as Tania. (Her husband must be proud of her, he is after all the Director Olivier Masset-Depasse).
★★★★★★★★
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