Exclusive: Trailer for Live-Action Short Oscar finalist ‘Refugee’

One of this year’s finalists for the Live-Action Short Oscar, Refugee tells the riveting and timely story of a Syrian doctor who attempts to escape her war-ravaged homeland with her young daughter and you’ll see the trailer for the film exclusively on AwardsWatch.

The film is a passionate look at the crisis in Syria, as it follows a pediatric surgeon Amira (Yasmine Al Massri, Quantico) and her young daughter Rasha (Massa Daoud). When the war that has largely spared them finally strikes close to home, Amira and Rasha suddenly find themselves fleeing for their lives — forced into a dangerous journey during which they must heal their relationship and draw close even as they leave their homeland behind forever.  The young actress Massa Daoud, who plays Rasha in the film, is actually a Syrian refugee herself and escaped with her family in 2012 and relocated to Los Angeles.

Along with Yasmine Al Massri and Massa Daoud, Refugee also stars Omar Sy (The Untouchables, Jurassic World) and Jason Beghe (NBC’s Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Chicago Med and Chicago Justice. Refugee was produced by Anderson with Kristi Lake and Jared Shores and executive produced by Moritz Borman, Nicholas Ferrall, Wade Major, Terri Pappas, Nigel Sinclair and Scott Swofford.

In 2017, director/writer/producer Brandt Andersen and his team traveled to refugee camps in Azraq, Jordan to help start the first ever Azraq Film School, to help refugees tell their own stories. It was from these experiences, and those at other refugee camps, that he created Refugee.

“Making Refugee has been one of the great filmmaking experiences of my life,” says Andersen. “I hope this film will give audiences the space to reconsider refugees and immigrants, and their place in our society. I hope this will allow for a reevaluation of how refugees and immigrants should be treated in our communities.”

Brandt Anderson

The film has garnered immense support in the region including support from the Executive Director and CEO of USA for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Anne-Marie Grey who said “Refugee is a powerfully authentic and human glimpse into the global refugee crisis. We look forward to seeing the film help open hearts and minds to drive the change that shows refugees that we are truly with them.”

Famed artist Banksy projected the film on the wall opposite his hotel The Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, in the West Bank on December 6 of this year.

In an AwardsWatch exclusive, here is the trailer for Refugee:

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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