Go, Friend, Go

Every year thousands of people try to reach Europe by land, journeying on foot across the mountains, rivers and fields of the Balkan route connecting Asia to Europe. Those with some money set aside mostly rely on human smugglers to cross from one country to the next. Everyone else faces the « game »: attempting repeatedly to cross borders by walking in the forests, hiding under truck trailers or freight trains to avoid being arrested by border police, and escape violence and the subsequent push back that would take them back to square one. Go, friend, go spans across the port of Patras in Greece, the forests by the border town of Šid in Serbia, the abandoned factories in the Bosnian Una Sana canton, and the arrival point in Trieste’s public squares, all peripheral hotspots of migrant lives in transit. In bringing together different stories employing several narrative techniques (footage, animation and found footage), the film is an experiential journey, aiming to draw the viewer to feel the contrasting experience of resilience and resourceful hope that can be found even in the context of destitution and violence produced by the European border system.