My Paper Life

An Iranian filmmaker befriends a Syrian family in Brussels and they communicate past traumas and future dreams through drawings.

Artist and filmmaker Vida Dena’s subtle and intimate film focuses on the two eldest daughters of a Syrian refugee family living in precarious conditions in Brussels. Within the pink walls of their temporary home, Hala and Rima tenderly co-create a poignant and playful world drawn from a past that they knew and a future they imagine. Remembering their old home, and the journey from it, while dreaming of future studies and marriage, their colourful drawings take flight and come to life. This is a nuanced and involving sketch of lives unfolding between two realities.