"If I die on the way to Malaysia, I will finally be free"
Rohingyas people are a Muslim ethnic minority. They live in the Burmese state of Arakan (Rakhine) located in the west of the country and adjacent to Bangladesh. They give way to the Buddhist Arakans, with whom they have been in hostile relations for several decades.
Under the Act on Nationalities from 1982, the Government of Burma officially does not recognize the Rohingyas as a separate group. This stance was supported by the controversial and methodologically questionable official list of 135 "nations" of Burma, which eventually ruled out Rohingyas from the society. As an unrecognized ethnic group, they are treated by the Burmese government as illegal immigrants, and consequently on the land they have been living for generations, they remain stateless.
This documentary project is a record of the history of the heroes and fates of the persecuted Rohingya community, cruelly ruled out from the society.
In 2013, Marcin Zaborowski and Paweł Skawiński set off to Bangladesh to find and tell the Rohingya story. They conducted 40 interviews with refugees, talked to Rohingyas who live in Bangladesh for years, to social activists working with refugees, former UN workers, and other non-governmental organisations. After many hard working days in Bangladesh, they managed to enter refugee camps where they could see the living conditions of their heroes.
This story was the first edition of the documentary project about Rohingya people, which the authrors implement to this day.