No Comment

On 5 November 1998, Nicolas Sarkozy, then minister of the Interior, closed the refugee centre of the Red Cross in Sangatte, near Calais. For three years, an empty warehouse had sheltered some 6,000 refugees. They all wanted to go to the United Kingdom to apply for asylum there – very much against the will of the British, who repeatedly asked for the reception centre to be closed. In her documentary film No Comment, Nathalie Loubeyre shows the situation as it is today – six years after the centre has closed. Hundreds of refugees still live in the area. After fleeing poverty, war and oppression in other parts of the world, they now don’t even have a roof above their heads or a bed to sleep in. They have to eat under the bare sky, and the police constantly keeps an eye on them. Nathalie Loubeyre’s special documentary, literally and figuratively without comment, exposes the circumstances under which the refugees have to survive every day.