Asylum
[70 min, 2007] Feature documentary following two Afghan boys & a Somali girl as they seek asylum in Finland.
Director: Jenni Linko, producer: YLE (Finland)
* Best Documentary at Lubeck Film Festival, Germany 2007
Jenni asked me to score this powerful documentary in the summer of 2006, and we worked on it over the Autumn and Winter of that year. It was commissioned by YLE, the equivalent of BBC in Finland. I had also written the music for a couple of her other projects (You Are the Only One who Knows and Studio Upstairs), so we had a good understanding of each other’s work. Jenni came over to London for a few days early on in the process, and we discussed our ideas for the score while the film was still in a very rough shape. We agreed that music would be used sparingly as the stories of these three characters were powerful enough without too much help from the score, and we did not want to over-egg the pudding.
The film follows Azim & Wahid, two teenage boys from Afghanistan and Sudi, a Somali girl (aged 12 when filming started), in their efforts to gain asylum to Finland. There are many logistical and bureaucratic hurdles for each of them to cross and, while they awaiting for the results of the various hearings, they are kept in the immigration centre; a kind of holding area where they form friendships, but know that at any time they could be shipped back to the wartorn countries from which they have fled. Meanwhile the people who decide their fate remain strangely absent and invisible.
The bureaucracy they encounter moves painfully slowly and there is a kind of timelessness to their existence while their lives hang in the balance; this is one of the things I tried to convey in the score. I think it is an important and moving film, and a very intimate portrait of three vulnerable young people at a crux point in their lives. Following it’s broadcast, Asylum received very positive reviews, including one broadsheet review commenting in particular on the effectiveness of the music.
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