2020/2021 Winners & Shortlists

Write a short summary of what happens in the film

Our film starts by portraying the emotions every Lebanese person felt during the government imposed COVID lockdown: boredom, loneliness, anguish and isolation, repeat. As we follow a ghost-like figure through a house, we gradually reveal that we are not talking about the living conditions of a Lebanese during lockdown, but actually about the life of a migrant domestic worker and their reality. A reality that has existed long before COVID. Here the viewers are faced with a realization: that they've been imposing these disturbing conditions on domestic workers, trapped for years inside their homes. With the parallel drawn, we ask the viewer one final question, leaving them with a daunting thought and hoping for them to act: When lockdown ends and they are all finally free, what will we do to end the lockdown of domestic workers as well?

Cultural / Context information for the jury

The Kafala system is a legal system by which migrant domestic workers are bound to an employer during a contract period. For decades, employers have abused this system with no legal consequences and domestic workers have been trapped in a web of abuse. These women are regularly denied their basic freedoms: their movement strictly controlled, their days off taken away and their communication with the outside world strictly monitored. It’s basically modern-day slavery. For years, ARM and other NGOs had been unsuccessfully calling for the Lebanese government to change the law and abolish Kafala. However, this movement didn’t have the necessary support from the population because it’s a reality so far removed from their own. In order for people to truly fight about a cause, they need to empathize with it, and the Covid lockdown gave us the perfect opportunity to sensitize the Lebanese to our cause.