Island of the Hungry Ghosts

Island of the Hungry Ghosts

2DCS/ES12
Director:Gabrielle Brady
Premiere:10. March 2019
Length:98 minutes
Genre:Document

Director: Gabrielle Brady

Australia’s Christmas Island – at the start of the 21st century the site of migrant detention centers, heavily criticized for their inhumanity and poor conditions.

According to myth, agitated “hungry ghosts” roam Christmas Island. It is as if this film is made from their perspective. Like Ahasver, the camera roves around the island quietly observing, sometimes quite eerily. But this is only one way to reveal the island’s current troubled soul, which the film best does through the family life and work of one woman employed at a counselling center for traumatized refugees. Daily, she hears stories of suffering, degradation, and frustration from people who left their countries in desperation, only to end up behind a fence, trapped on an island where, like the “hungry ghosts”, they futilely wait for salvation.

Length: 98 min

Year: 2018
Local premiere date: 10. March 2019
World premiere date: 19. April 2018

Country of origin:

  • United Kingdom
  • Germany
  • Australia

Director: Gabrielle Brady

Australia’s Christmas Island – at the start of the 21st century the site of migrant detention centers, heavily criticized for their inhumanity and poor conditions.

According to myth, agitated “hungry ghosts” roam Christmas Island. It is as if this film is made from their perspective. Like Ahasver, the camera roves around the island quietly observing, sometimes quite eerily. But this is only one way to reveal the island’s current troubled soul, which the film best does through the family life and work of one woman employed at a counselling center for traumatized refugees. Daily, she hears stories of suffering, degradation, and frustration from people who left their countries in desperation, only to end up behind a fence, trapped on an island where, like the “hungry ghosts”, they futilely wait for salvation.

Year: 2018
Local premiere date: 10. March 2019
World premiere date: 19. April 2018

Country of origin:

  • United Kingdom
  • Germany
  • Australia