Not a Pawn in Their Game
The brief
The EuroMed Feminist Initiative runs a campaign each year for the 16 Days of Activism against violence against women and girls. The subject in 2021 was the abuse Syrian women face after fleeing war, and that abuse is rarely one thing. It is physical, verbal, emotional and financial at once, and most of it happens out of sight. A one minute film cannot document all of that, so it had to find a way to make it legible instead.
Production approach
Fine Line produced the film in Lebanon and led the 2021 campaign end to end, creating the Be Her Safety identity that EuroMed later adopted across its offices in the region. The film puts a Syrian refugee family on a life-sized chessboard in a dark room and moves them from square to square, not by any hand you can see but by sound. Gunfire and missiles push them into displacement. Then the sounds change to catcalling and physical abuse.
Nothing is shown being done to anyone, and that is the point. The violence is audible and only its consequences are visible, so the film never has to stage a blow to make you feel one. As the game plays out the husband disappears, leaving a mother and her children on the board alone. An orange spotlight finally reaches her, shields her, and reveals other women standing on the board holding what the world can actually offer, from jobs to shelters. Orange runs through the wardrobe throughout to tie the film to the Orange the World theme.
Outcome
It closes on a single appeal rather than a list of demands: Be Her Safety. That line became the identity for the whole campaign and outlasted the film itself. The work was supported by the Government of Sweden.
The following year we made Her Museum for the same client, a second hero film for the same campaign. Two years running, two very different formats, one argument.
Client: EuroMed Feminist Initiative · Production: Fine Line Production · Lebanon, 2021
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