The Catalan photojournalist Eva Parey has presented her second documentary at the Malaga Film Festival, titled “Aamelat. “Day laborers of war.” “Aamelat” means day laborers in Arabic. The documentary exposes the conditions of labor exploitation in the countryside of a group of women and girls of Syrian origin who survive in one of the thousands of informal settlements at the foot of the border with Syria. This ensemble film bears witness to the reality that day laborers live, in a limbo waiting for the war to end.
An entire country, Lebanon, feeds on the work carried out by Syrian refugee women and girls, but not even in Beirut their situation is known. “These women belong to the lowest rung of a hierarchical pyramid in the informal market,” explains Parey, who is also a professor of two photography subjects in the Audiovisual Media Degree at TecnoCampus.
His documentary project began with previous journalistic research work that he carried out thanks to a DevReporter Grant in collaboration with the NGO Alkaria. “After publishing several reports and producing a photographic exhibition, I felt that it was the Aamelat who had to explain their own story,” says the director. “Aamelat. Day Laborers of War” is an intimate portrait of the consequences of the war in Syria, the result of several stays of the author with a family of refugees in an informal settlement in Lebanon.
Coinciding with the start of the screening of the documentary at festivals, these days the photographic exhibition is being shown at the UAB, which can be visited until March 20 in the Exhibition Hall of the Communication Library on the university campus. The work shown is the result of four stays of the author in an informal settlement near the border, where she lived with the protagonists of her images. The exhibition documents the conditions of labor exploitation and violation of rights suffered by women and girls who have fled the civil war in Syria and who live in informal settlements in Lebanon.
The photographs, taken between 2018 and 2019, reflect the reality of the day laborers who work in the fields for Lebanese landowners, in exhausting days and with minimum wages, and who at the same time face the difficulties of life in the refugee camps, where Basic services and legal protection are scarce. The project also seeks to make visible the resilience and dignity of these women and girls who, despite adversity, maintain their identity and their desire to live.
Parey has received a great reception at the Malaga Festival with this work, which has been screened in the “Affirming women’s rights” section. This women’s section was created by the journalist Mabel Lozano in collaboration with the Equality Area of ??the Malaga City Council. Parey’s documentary is one of two feature-length films and 10 shorts selected from around 300 titles.
The documentary has a clear social intention of vindicating human rights, in addition to highlighting the power of resilience of Syrian refugee women and girls. With her visit to Malaga, Parey begins with this work a career through different festivals sensitive to the reality of women or the defense of human rights, such as the Santiago Álvarez in Memoriam Festival in Cuba and soon in France and Bangladesh.
This documentary was made possible thanks to the involvement of the Cooperation and Solidarity area of ??the Municipalities of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Sabadell, Sant Boi, Terrassa and Mataró, the Girbau Foundation and the collaboration of the Institute of Inequalities within a program of the Catalan Development Cooperation Agency (ACCD).