Refugees only want a better life: IFFI opening film Director

Panaji: The refugee crisis in Europe is a fall out of problems created by some European nations and the US in underdeveloped countries like Syria, said Goran Paskaljevic, director of 'Despite the Fog', the opening film of the 50th edition of the International Film Festival of India on Wednesday.

The Belgrade-born director said that the film, which is set in Italy, deals with the hostile reaction among some Europeans to the immigrant crisis which borders on xenophobia.

"'Despite the Fog' is about the biggest problem in Europe today, immigration. What was very interesting for me, is how the people react in Europe to immigrants. Some kind of xenophobic reaction. They don't like them, they refuse them more and more because they think refugees create problems, which is not true. Europeans and Americans specially, they create problems in Syria," Paskaljevic said on the sidelines of the IFFI which gets underway on Wednesday.

"Who would like to leave his house, nobody. If you have a hard life and you live in poverty, it is normal to try to find a new life somewhere else especially in war zones like in Syria for example, where you are risking your life everyday," Paskaljevic said.

The film will also be shown in at least three other film festivals in India over the coming months, the director said.