EYES ON THE WORLD
The Envelope welcomes a select audience of Hollywood guild members and awards voters during the season to consider some of the year’s most talked-about films and television shows with The Envelope Screening Series. Each screening is followed by a Q&A with the cast and filmmakers moderated by an Los Angeles Times journalist. For those of you unable to attend, The Envelope brings you highlights right here. And for videos of these sessions, go to latimes.com/screenings.
Recently, The Envelope hosted two foreign-language films, “Capernaum,” about the plight of street kids and refugees in Lebanon, and “Eldorado,” which looks at the refugee crisis on a more global scale.
“Capernaum” director Nadine Labaki was joined by producer Khaled Mouzanar and young actor Zain Al Rafeea, who spoke about tapping into his own experiences as a refugee living in Lebanon for the role. Since the film’s Cannes debut, Al Rafeea has been resettled in Norway.
Markus Imhoof, director of the Swiss documentary “Eldorado,” focused more specifically on the European migrant crisis in countries like Lebanon, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and other areas along the Mediterranean Sea. Imhoof was joined by Amnesty International USA field organizer Muna Sharif, who detailed the spread of xenophobia in the area.
“This xenophobia that has been spreading as part of the narrative is causing countries like Germany and Italy and Switzerland to close their borders and not welcome refugees and not allow people to apply for asylum — so it’s only adding to the problem.” — MUNA SHARIF, Amnesty International USA field organizer
“In the beginning, I was too shy to show it. I wanted to hide it because it’s my personal love story.” — MARKUS IMHOOF, on the encounter during World War II with an Italian refugee child that spurred the film
“It’s a mixture of what Nadine wanted me to say and also things that I invented myself.” — ZAIN AL RAFEEA, describing the “Capernaum” dialogue