Haunting

SLC

We just finished our last screening of the festival with Welcome Europa, a visually poetic portrait of several young immigrants to Europe. It’s a devastating story of Kurdish, Moroccan and Romanian immigrants who come looking for a better way of life, hoping to make enough money to send something home to their impoverished families. What’s revealed is a community of men who move from city to city, hoping that each will be better than the last. Instead, they’re left destitute and struggling to survive, most sleeping in boxes and turning to male prostitution as a way to simply survive. Before embarking on the project, Bruno Ulmer spent nearly a year living with these men and getting to know them before turning on the camera in an attempt to show the world their amazing story. The documentary that was born from his experiences blurs traditional lines and immerses the audience in this gritty world, using vivid, sometimes impressionistic imagery. Sorrowful, humiliating and emotionally powerful throughout, Welcome Europa is a documentary with a lot to say. Highly recommended.