FILM EVENT+Q&A

Synopsis

Shelter Without Shelter explores the hopes and challenges involved in providing temporary housing for refugees. Filmed over three years since 2015, this six-part documentary investigates how forced migrants from Syria were sheltered across Europe and the Middle East, ending up in mega-camps, city squats, occupied airports, illegal settlements, requisitioned buildings, flat-pack structures, and enormous architect-designed reception centres. Containing perspectives from the humanitarians who created these shelters as well as the critics who campaigned against them, the documentary reveals the complex dilemmas involved in attempts to house refugees in emergency conditions. Based on innovative new research at the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre, Shelter Without Shelter offers new insights into a universal human experience. We all need shelter, but what is it?

SHELTER WITHOUT SHELTER emerges from the Architectures of Displacement research project at the University of Oxford. It is a collaboration between Associate Professor Tom Scott-Smith and Emmy-nominated filmmaker and architect Mark E Breeze.

[Best Documentary Film – 2020 Research in Film Awards]