18/03/2024 - With her powerful second feature, Tamara Kotevska brings us into the universe both tragic and fantastic of a child fighting to find her place in the world

Having its European premiere at FIFDH in Geneva following its selection at DOC NYC, The Walk, from Macedonian documentary filmmaker Tamara Kotevska, throws us with poetic violence into the daily life of a young girl who has lost everything in the war: her family, her house, and her identity. After the success of her debut feature Honeyland [+see also:
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film profile] (directed together with Ljubomir Stefanov), which was nominated in both the Best International Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature categories at the Oscars and dealt with the necessity to protect nature and natural resources, Kotevska turns her gaze towards another emergency in The Walk, one that is linked to the global migrant crisis. With the elegance and the intensity that characterise her cinema, the Macedonian filmmaker talks about the many people who no longer have a home and the difficulty they face daily as memories of their previous lives seem to slowly disappear. 

The Walk centres on a young Syrian refugee called Asil, who was forced to abandon her country because of the war. Her story, told from the child’s own perspective, is representative of the sad and cruel reality lived by millions of young migrants. Supporting her story is the giant puppet Amal who, animated by three puppeteers who are also migrants themselves, moves from the Syrian border towards Turkey then Europe, the United States, and finally Mexico. Amal’s endless journey is placed under the aegis of compassion and tolerance. Through her immense eyes, those of a child with nothing left to lose, we literally discover the world, its cruelty but also its beauty. 

More directly political, compared to Honeyland, The Walk filters the cruelty of the present through the prism of creativity and fantasy of a child who has no intention to abandon her own dreams under the rubble of a city that no longer exists. The Walk takes its title from an international project, spearheaded by artistic director Amir Nizar Zuabi, which aims to raise awareness and funds to help displaced children, the collateral victims of wars that do not make exceptions for anyone. 

Deftly bringing together art and social struggle, Kotevska works in a cross-cutting manner, placing in parallel Amal’s journey and the true story of the war orphan, this tragedy of underage migrants often without adults accompanying them. The giant puppet thus becomes a metaphor for the difficulty of facing daily life for this young protagonist, heroine of a present she cannot yet decipher and of a past she was forced to abandon. Although the theme of the film is sadly topical and the political implications made by the director are clear, the documentary is imbued with a cathartic dose of fantasy and with some of the lightness of a fairytale. Never superficial yet sometimes enriched by fantastical elements, The Walk amplifies reality by fusing everyday life with dreams, desperation with hope. Emblematic in this respect are the images of the tents of these displaced people, who insert themselves with desperate determination among the streets of these European metropolises, seen through the eyes of a child. 

Starting from brief but intense conversations with Asil and with other displaced children, the director talks in voiceover about the pain and fears that, in their imaginations, do not yet have a face. The waking nightmares of these young victims creep into their present, materialising on the screen through archive images of cities razed by bombs. Rather than fall into pathos, and on the contrary sublimating this violence through aesthetically poetic images of birds in flight or even of children sleeping in a large room filled with coloured cushions, Kotevska shows the unspeakable with great empathy and a healthy dose of courage.

The Walk was produced by Grain Media, co-produced by Cinegryphon Entertainment (United Stated) and MBK Productions. International sales are handled by Together Films.

(Translated from Italian)