03/05/2023 - Lisa Gerig’s movie raises questions over her own country’s asylum-granting process, asking four asylum seekers to relive their traumatic hearings

Depicting a close confrontation between Europe and refugees, a kind of psychodrama offered up in order to explore personal emotions and experiences, symbolising the West’s problematic response to the migrant crisis and the limits of a hard-to-manage situation, The Hearing is the first feature-length documentary by thirty-two-year-old Swiss director Lisa Gerig, whose graduate film Zaungespräche took a radically subjective approach to the situation of people held in deportation centres in Zurich.

With The Hearing, selected for the European Film Promotion (EFP)’s The Changing Face of Europe initiative, unfolding at Hot Docs, Gerig wanted to play a cruel and emotional game, but one which was masterly conducted through the means of film, asking four asylum seekers to relive their Switzerland-based hearings. These are four people with incredibly different stories, who had to dredge up their most traumatising memories in order to convince officials working for the Secretary of State for Migration (SEM) of their need to escape their country of provenance. Gerig asks the political activist from Cameroon Pascal Onana, who was arrested, injured and threatened after speaking at the United Nations in Geneva about the civil war in his country which was being ignored by the international community, to read his speech again: “Today, I am the voice of those who don’t have a voice…”. But, apparently, not even his voice or his suffering is enough to qualify for asylum in Switzerland, the quintessential neutral country. SEM assessors had to record how many times pugnacious Nigerian Vittoria Innocent, who was sold by her parents, dried her eyes while recounting her infernal childhood. The transgender Indian activist Living Smile Vidja describes how her sex-change operation was only carried out under partial anaesthetic, relating the “simple” and violent castration of her penis, and the ensuing police harassment. Young Afghan J Sael struggles to speak of the ambushes set by the religious leaders in his village after voicing his dissent.

Seeing asylum seekers taking their lunch break alongside interviewers, interpreters and heads of protocol is like watching a theatre company, where soldiers wearing different army uniforms all sit around the same table. Then the roles are reversed. The role-playing game continues. SEM staff must respond to the asylum seekers. How does it feel to have the power to decide over other people’s fate? “Are you sure you can tell whether a story is true or false?” They defend their position, not wishing to be confused with the authorities and the bureaucratic rules which they must follow: “I feel I’m in a position to give someone the opportunity to express themselves in order to obtain refugee status”. There’s an exploration of memories, which aren’t recordings of an experience but more of a process which develops over time.

The cathartic practice of portraying yourself and then playing the role of the person on the other side of the desk allows the director to question the asylum process in her country, its procedures and its efficacy (article 7 of SEM regulation states: “Whosoever asks for asylum must prove or at least realistically demonstrate refugee status”). Pascal Onana gives the best description of the vertiginous sensation of being at the mercy of someone else’s judgement. “You have to tell them everything about yourself, you’re naked before them. And then the person who has taken your clothes from you doesn’t give them back. They simply send you out into the city to await their verdict”. He, who was so sure they’d understand him and that he’d have a new life.

The Hearing is produced by Ensemble Film GmbH in co-production with SRF. Distribution in Switzerland is entrusted to Outside the Box while international sales are in the hands of Rise and Shine.

(Translated from Italian)