In conversation with Behrouz Boochani and Simon V Kurian

Descriptive transcript

SARA: Wow. What an extraordinary film. It's such a searing indictment on Australia's abuse of people seeking asylum, as well as a powerful depiction of the enduring resistance and humanity of those who have been forced to endure this system of imprisonment and banishment, and in particular, the story and struggles of one man, Behrouz Boochani. My name is Sara Dehm. I'm an academic here at the UTS Faculty of Law, and I'll be moderating tonight's panel discussion. It's my absolute honour and pleasure to welcome to the stage Behrouz Boochani and Simon Kurian to join me in conversation. Please take a seat. [Applause]

So, let me begin by acknowledging that we are on Gadigal Country, to pay my respects to Gadigal Elders past and present, and to acknowledge the sovereignty, resistance, leadership and survival of First Nations people across these lands and waters. For today's event, I think it's particularly important to acknowledge that First Nations people have also been harmed by Australia's border regime and immigration prisons, and that the struggle for refugee freedom and justice is connected to the struggles of First Nations people for self-determination and justice.

Before we begin tonight's panel discussion, I'll also flag that each of you have received a postcard on your seat in relation to UTS's Humanitarian Scholarship Program. This program is really unique in terms of its size and scope, and is necessary because otherwise many of these students would be unable to access Commonwealth Supported places or government loan schemes due to their visa status. The program covers not only tuition fees, but also provides comprehensive support beyond such fees, including education costs, as well as a range of peer, academic and industry mentoring. Earlier this year, the program was also expanded to offer four additional places in response to the humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine, including for Palestinian students fleeing the ongoing genocide in Gaza who are now in Australia. We would not be able to run this program without the generous support of donors. If you are in a position to donate, you can find information on the postcard.

As essential as it is that universities step in to rectify this particular injustice of federal law and policy, I think it's important that we don't lose sight of our responsibility as members of Australian universities and the Australian public more generally, to keep insisting on law reform and policy change so that all students from refugee backgrounds, irrespective of visa status, can access government support to pursue further tertiary opportunities in Australia.

But of course, this denial of tertiary education rights operates within a larger punitive environment towards people seeking asylum in Australia, as we've just seen in this remarkable film. As many of you would know, Australia has had a law and intermittent policy of so-called offshore immigration detention or prisons for over two decades now. The film that we just saw depicted the second phase of this period—the reintroduction of offshore detention from 2012 onwards—which means that when Australia reintroduced offshore detention, the government did so knowing fully well the catastrophic human consequences of this policy, as well as that it systematically violates core principles of international law. And yet it also continues to this day. So, whilst the film that we just watched ends in around 2020, when Behrouz and others finally managed to find some freedom, and even though Australia formally ended its so-called offshore detention agreement with PNG in December of 2021, there are still around 50 refugees and asylum seekers in PNG, who Australia forcibly deported there over ten years ago, and who now live, some alongside their partners and children, in incredibly dire and deteriorating life-threatening conditions with little or no state support. In addition, since September 2021, Australia and Nauru agreed to renew and make permanent their offshore detention arrangement, and in fact there are currently around 94 people seeking asylum in Nauru today, who Australia forcibly sent there in the last year. So, this means that the policy and harms that you saw depicted in the film are very much ongoing.

So on that sobering note, let me introduce our esteemed guests, Behrouz Boochani and Simon Kurian. I'll be incredibly brief. Behrouz will need very little introduction to all of you. He's, of course, an acclaimed Kurdish writer, journalist, scholar, advocate and filmmaker, whose extraordinary book rightly was awarded Australia's most prestigious literary award in 2019. Simon is an award-winning film director, editor and director of photography. In addition to the film we just watched, Simon's other documentaries include Stop the Boats, that depicts the harms of Australia's militarised border policing. His works have won several awards and have been in official selections of many film festivals.

So, welcome to you both. We'll speak for approximately 20 minutes, followed by some time for audience questions. And I'd like to start off by exploring the making of this extraordinary film. So Simon, you and Behrouz started working together on your Stop the Boats film when Behrouz was still in Manus prison, and then you decided to collaborate on this current feature film that we just watched, not knowing what would happen or how things would unfold for Behrouz, or your collaboration, or indeed Australia's refugee law and policy. So, can you share with us your reflections on the making of this film, and in particular the specific impetus for the project, as well as some of its challenges and highlights?

SIMON: Hi everyone. Thank you for coming and thank you for coming to watch the film. Yeah, to start with, I was working with Behrouz since I think 2015, when I first contacted him in Manus to shoot some stuff for me for Stop the Boats, my first film. And we've been working together for four years on that film. And in 2018, I thought now that film was telling the broader story from both Nauru and Manus. I wanted to hear from Behrouz because he's one man who brought this story to Australia constantly through his articles more than anyone else. Because of Behrouz, people were more aware of what was happening in Manus, because often these detainees are sent away from a country, it's forgotten, people don't hear the stories. And Behrouz single-handedly brought that constantly through his journalism, so I thought it's appropriate to tell the story from his point of view. And of course, there are many challenges. The first challenge being, when do we start, when do we finish the film? So this is a question Behrouz posed to me and said, okay, he wants to make the film, but when do we stop filming, when do we actually finish? I said, we'll finish the film, no matter how long it takes, when you get freedom. So that's how we started. And of course, there are plenty of challenges because Behrouz being in Manus, and also this now added challenge because for Stop the Boats, Behrouz was filming for me. Now he became the subject, so we needed to find other people to film him. So we had to find other detainees who were willing to help us. And we found one or two and they managed to film, and then we had to bring the footage to Australia. And because consider that Behrouz is in detention and he has tremendous pressure on him on various other things, and more than anything is freedom. And in between, you're asking him to make a film, it's a big challenge. So the process is fairly slow, but little by little we managed to get enough footage out of there. And then I was able to follow Behrouz to New Zealand, and then in 2020 Behrouz got his claim, and that's how we did this.

SARA: Amazing. Thank you. Behrouz, you've spoken about collaborations like this as acts of resistance and solidarity. What was your experience of making the film and in particular building trust with Simon around the collaboration, all the while you're facing the very real ongoing daily struggles of being in detention, limits on communication, but also more broadly thinking about questions around your own authorial voice in the film and creative integrity as a filmmaker yourself?

BEHROUZ: Thank you very much. Hi everyone. I think working with refugees, especially inside the detention centre, is really challenging already, because people who approach refugees, approach detainees to do any kind of project—it can be an academic, it can be a writer, it can be an artist or filmmaker—already is a challenge because there is a power dimension there. And most of refugees who've been approached by people, mostly from Australia, and especially for me, because I've met many people via internet and I work with many people, so it is challenging because people who approach refugees, they already have an image about you as a refugee, so they see you less. That is the first thing, that is the first challenge. Of course, they are free, and so I think for people who approach refugees, they should always be aware of that power dimension. But for me it was not only that. For me it was to work with people who understand the context intellectually, understand the different layers of it, understand the colonialism context of this policy. So when someone approached me, I think I easily trusted in him as a person with a good heart, as a person who I felt that we are equal and as a person who was skilful as a filmmaker. So that's why. So that was the first film, and the second one, when he approached me about the story, that was quite challenging for me because I've been writing about others for many years and then I became a subject, but I trusted in him and we worked together and he made the film.

SARA: Thank you. You mentioned power dynamics on an interpersonal level as well as systemic level in terms of colonialism and the prison system. Behrouz, I want to ask you or draw you out a little bit more around this question of power dynamics. So one of the things I think your work does so importantly is to show how Australia's offshore prisons are a form of torture in terms of their cruelty and attempted dehumanisation. And in your book you theorise this as the kyriarchal system with its logic of domination and domestication which deliberately punishes, oppresses and inflicts suffering on people in prison there. And you've written so powerfully about the everyday violence of the queue in Manus prison, whether it's for meals or internet, and how this tries to create conflict between detainees or deny people food, for example. And yet we saw in the film how you found ways to collectively endure and resist this system. And I think there was a really powerful moment in the film from November 2017 where you talk about it as being a happy situation because finally the system doesn't have the same control over you when you got together and occupied Manus prison. So from your perspective, what did it take for refugees to come together in that way and how do you reflect upon that particular moment now?

BEHROUZ: Yeah, I think of course it's a very long story, long history. But always I say that actually what we've done, or I myself and people that I've been working with, we've been trying to of course expose the system, but link with the political context in Australia. So I was always aware of it, that we shouldn't talk about Manus as separated from Australia. Always I've been trying to bring Manus to political context in Australia and analyse it here and try to understand it from here, because we were banished by Australia and the system was designed by Australia and was running by Australia. So of course in all of my works, always I try to create that link. So our work was generally, I say, to create a space for that collective resistance that I always talk about, to be here, to make refugees visible. But in Manus, we have a very long history of collective resistance and some moments were very important. For example, in 2014, when we did a riot, actually ended up in a riot. In end of 2015, when we did the hunger strike, 600 men. And in 2017, during the siege, when they wanted to relocate us to other side of the island, and we refused to leave, and we stayed there for more than 20 days without medication, food, water, electricity, nothing. But we managed it. I think it's really important in these particular moments, we see the agency of refugees, because it's not easy to bring all of the detainees together to do a protest. So we had to, like any kind of society or community, we had to run a campaign inside the prison camp, talk with different people to bring people together, and also we had to manage the right time. We were looking at Australian politics, for example, we had to look at when the federal election is, the date, you know, what is happening in Australia. If we do it now, we achieve more. So, I mean, that is the agency, you know, that is a political—like, we were very political. So that's people who watch or look from outside, they really don't see that process is going on inside the prison camp. And I think it's really important that when we go back and look at it, we see those moments and understand it. But particularly in the siege in 2017, when we just woke up and all of the Australian guards left, and we had no water, no food, nothing, and we managed for 20 days. But actually those moments, those days were very difficult, but I think we were quite free for the first time. And, you know, there is an article I wrote about it actually—a letter from Manus prison—that I tried to explain those 20 days, how it was important and how we created a democratic community or society in those 22 days. So there is more detail about that in that article if people find it. Actually, I've published another book in 2022, Freedom, Only Freedom, which is a collection of my articles—not all of them, some of them. So, yeah, this article is there as well.

SARA: It was such incredible reporting that you were doing at the time. And also, I remember your use of Twitter and social media in order to speak directly about your campaign to people who were in Australia and elsewhere. There is elsewhere you've spoken about the limits of journalism as a medium for understanding the systematic torture of Manus prison, and the need to turn to other forms of creative expression for conveying the horrors of that system and for articulating a systemic critique. So I'm interested in hearing both your and Simon's reflections on the power of film and storytelling, visual storytelling as a particular genre of truth telling and advocacy, particularly knowing that refugees are so often forced to tell their stories to official asylum determination processes like you had to do in New Zealand, and that these stories can at times be turned against refugees as well. So what does the medium of film enable for both of you that's distinct from other genres such as writing or poetry or journalism? What were you hoping to achieve through the film? But also what were some of the ethical considerations that you discussed in making the film? Simon, would you like to go first?

SIMON: Well, for me making this film, I was always very sure that when I touch any subject it should always be the voice from the people who are in the film, not an external voice. So I was very particular about that in both of my films, Stop the Boats and this. And also I was very conscious that I'm recording a part of Australia's very dark history, and that should not be just a film that's screened a few times here and there and then disappears. So I released Stop the Boats in 2018 and it's still continuing to screen. I still push to screen the film because that is really, really relevant to keep this subject alive. Because, as you rightly said, everybody says, "Oh, now Manus is closed, Nauru is closed, therefore everything is back to normal," and especially after the recent election they said, "Oh, everything is fine." But the policy has not changed, it's still there. So tomorrow, if a boatload of people comes in, they're going to face similar prospects. So this is a reminder, because when I first made my film Stop the Boats, I titled it Stop the Boats. A lot of the refugee advocacy people wrote to me and said they would not see the film because I used the three ugly words. I said, I'm using it to remind Australians constantly, this is what you said, this is what you did with those three word slogans. So the purpose of making these two films is to make sure that it stays relevant, it continues, and these are the voices directly coming—not my voice, it's Behrouz's voice. In my previous film, it's the voice of the detainees, the children. So even 10 years, 15 years from now, the newer generation should know. I mean, as you know, what happened since—I don't remember, John Howard, the Tampa, the year—you know what he said and what happened since. So again, this is a simple policy, simple issue that has been taken up by the politicians to use for political purpose and convert it into something complicated. Because simply, what does it say? Refugees can come by boat, swim, whatever form, this is what they signed on to, and they come to our shore and say, give us protection. There's one obligation Australia had: process them, not put them in jail. If they are not refugees, they have the means to deal with that. But instead of that, the ugly part of it was, I think it's racist. The policy was designed as a racist policy. Had it been a bunch of Europeans coming by boat, they probably would have been welcomed with tea and crumpets. Instead, these people were sent to—and banishing people offshore often is to take the story away from Australia so you don't hear it. So this is what is happening, and I don't like injustice, so I wanted to make this film as truthful as I can.

SARA: Behrouz, did you have anything that you wanted to add to that?

BEHROUZ: Actually, I've been quite moving between different languages to tell this story, to expose the system—like writing, literature, journalism, even photography. But I think cinema is quite special, because they sent us to Manus and Nauru to be out of sight. So I think cinema is a powerful language to make people visible, make the story visible. And also, what Simon has done in his two films—to humanise people against the system that actually was designed to dehumanise people. And I don't think that in other mediums like writing we can do that. Of course, we can do it, but cinema, visual story, I think that's why it's very powerful. So I just mention my film as well, Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time. I don't know if you watched it or not, that is another film that we made with Arash Kamali Sarvestani.

SARA: Thank you. Behrouz, you've spoken elsewhere about your duty to history and how important that is, particularly to tell history from the viewpoint of the persecuted or oppressed, particularly in the face of successive Australian governments' attempts to deny the harms of offshore prisons and even to dismantle Manus prison physically, to sort of erase the trace of it. And you've emphasised the ongoing responsibility of all Australians to be informed about what our government is doing in our name and continues to do. So with that in mind, could you both briefly, before we open up to audience questions, give us a sense of your current creative or scholarly or advocacy projects, whether it's working to demand accountability or to archive the harms of offshore detention or to inspire social change?

BEHROUZ: Actually, I say that many times, but I'm not fully in agreement with that. I agree to what I say, that it is a duty to history. Of course, these works remain and people in future generations can return to these works and find them and have a better understanding. But what is the point? We've been writing and working to expose the system, to create a change for people who are currently suffering under this system. For people who've been detained, who've been banished, they don't care about history. They don't care what will happen in the future, how people in the future feel sorry or can get a lesson from this in the past. So I think that's why I myself, I say that many times, but I am not in agreement with what I say. Sometimes I say it differently. Just briefly, I mention last year I visited Tasmania and I accidentally visited the Port Arthur prison in Tasmania. And many people were there as tourists, they felt so sorry, you could see, about the convicts who suffered at that time. Of course, we should feel sorry for that. But I was thinking that, you know, right now, there are detention centres all around Australia where people are suffering. Why don't people care? Why should we just feel sorry for the history? So that's why I think we shouldn't really romanticise the history. And we see that Australia hasn't learned a lesson from history. It's a bad point. So that's why I have quite a problem with what I say.

SIMON: Well, what am I doing? Basically, I keep pushing these two films to the widest audience possible. To be honest with you, I made these two films with the intention not for the audience who are already converted, but for the others. But it's a very hard task to get them to come and watch, and when they do come and watch it, either they heckle or some of them get converted. So one of the things that we want to continue to do is push these films as much as possible. And you asked me what I'm doing next, because I'm on to another subject, which is an LGBT issue. I'm making a film in India about the transgender and LGBT issue in India. That's been going on for now three years, so hopefully we should finish that in the next year or so. So that's what we're doing.

SARA: That sounds like a remarkable film as well that I look forward to watching. So I think this is an ideal spot to open up to audience questions. In order to maximise our panellists' ability to respond to those questions, we ask that you keep your questions as brief as possible, and perhaps we'll gather two questions and then throw it over to Behrouz and Simon to respond, and then we'll proceed like that. So there's some roving microphones. I should also note that we are recording the discussion tonight, so please just flag with us afterwards if you don't want your question to be included in that recording.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 1: Hi. Thanks again, and thanks for being here, Behrouz. That was really incredible viewing. I'll keep it quick. I just saw that you had several books with you when you were in detention, and I just wanted to ask what literature has inspired you and what literature you were reading in detention?

BEHROUZ: In detention, it was quite difficult to read books, especially in the first years because it was difficult. The internet was too slow, so you really couldn't read books. But a particular book that I mention is a book written by Dostoevsky when he was banished to Siberia. I can't remember that book. But yeah, once I was walking in the prison, I found Harry Potter. I read that as a hard copy. But later, I think after four years, they let us receive letters or books or this kind of thing. I received books from friends.

SARA: Thank you. Anyone else with another question?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: In the film, some of the men that you obviously had relationships with because you'd been in there for so long—do you still keep in contact with them and have they been reunited with their families?

BEHROUZ: Yeah, I think that's a very good question. So right now, you mentioned 50 people remain, but actually 32 people remain, and they are just slowly sending them to mostly New Zealand. So from like 950 people, 30 people remain, 32 in Port Moresby. But people in the film, yeah, I am in touch with some people. It's of course hard to stay in touch with everyone. And one of them, actually the guy who did shooting for us, he got citizenship last week in the US. And another one, yeah, just people—different people, different stories. Another friend, he was transferred to Canada, but last week he met his family for the first time, but in Turkey. So he went back to Canada. Hopefully he'll be able to take his family to Canada in six, seven months.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: Thank you. Thank you very much for coming. That's a wonderful film and great to hear you. I've heard so much about you over many years. Behrouz, you're in Australia now. How was that emotional journey—coming to Australia?

BEHROUZ: I can say the most challenging time for me was two years ago when I came to Australia for the first time, it was in the Melbourne airport. When I arrived there, I was thinking that I am wrong. I feel that I've done quite a lot about this story, but I'm wrong because I just imagined Australia. That was the first time I visited Australia. Even when I came to Australia, they didn't let us in, they just banished us. So that was the moment that was quite challenging. But when I passed the gate, actually the officer at the gate, he recognised me. That's a good sign. So when I passed the gate, no, I think it was not challenging. I know that some people say, why did you visit a country that banished you or like that? But always I say, that collective resistance that I mentioned, I don't mean only refugees, people who've been working with refugees as well, people like Omid, like Simon. I say that I work with the good side of Australia against the dark side of Australia. So I don't look at it black and white. So that's why I think it's not fair that we reject the whole country or whole society.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 4: Firstly, thank you so much for being here. It's an absolute honour to be in your presence. You have a very beautiful and powerful voice, mashallah. I wanted to ask if you have any plans in the future to use your voice in that way to tell your story.

BEHROUZ: I think I am working on some projects that are not about refugees, because I look at it as, again, as a kind of resistance as well. Because, you know, in Western culture, it doesn't matter who you are, if you are a minority, they always put you in a box and they only accept you in that box, that you should just tell your story. So that means that I am supposed to just write about refugees forever. Of course, I write about refugees. I feel responsible, I should write, and still I am writing, but I do other things as well. Like, you know, these days I write fiction stories that are not absolutely about refugees. So that's why I do different projects. So that's why I am not going to tell my story in that way. But regarding music, Oli is here. We met each other, I think it was two years ago in Bali, in a festival. So he's a pianist, we met each other. So it was supposed that I come here and we go to his studio to record something. But I was lazy, I was not prepared. But I promised him that in two months I will send him something, I record something and I send it to him that he can work on it. I just do it for fun, just for myself. I like it, yeah.

SARA: I think we have time for one final question.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 5: Hi, Behrouz. Thank you so much for being here, and thank you Simon for being here. My question is, if you could, my request is, if you could speak to just a little bit about that freedom when you did finally get it. How did that feel, I guess? Did you find anything surprising at all? And my second question is, if we wanted to do something for the people that are still detained, what would you suggest we do?

BEHROUZ: Yeah, I think I remember a particular moment when I arrived in New Zealand, in the airport. So it took quite an hour that they let me pass the gate because I didn't have proper documentation. And when I passed the gate, I can say that I was about to cry. And that was the moment that I'll never forget, because for a second I had the chance, for the first time after many years, to look back—all of those years, passing the ocean. For many years I didn't have an opportunity to look at the past because I had to keep going. So I didn't have a chance to, and I think that moment was very interesting, that I became quite emotional. Someone with a camera was there and they recorded it, but I don't think people realised that. But it was hard for me really to manage it. So that moment.

And another question is what people should do. I think, of course, you can support people, like people who are in Port Moresby—30 people—by donation or like that. But in terms of academics, people who are researchers, I think it's really important that we create the body of work—not only me, many people, many refugees. And really we create, I can say, our unique resistance knowledge. And I think that's really important. As an academic, you can use those materials, bring those materials into your research. I think it's really important. That's something. Because at the end of the day, we were people or someone like me, I was in a remote island and I was watching Australia all the time, and I was experiencing violence by a system that was created by Australia. So of course, our political perspective, our understanding of Australia, it can be unique. That's why not only refugees, the minorities in the society—because at the end of the day, we produce the most radical, fundamental knowledge to create change, because we experience the dark side of liberal democracy, not others. So that's why we always think to find a way to create change. So I think in terms of refugees, there is a body of work. It's a huge body of work—books, films, poetry—and it's really important as an academic to use those materials.

SARA: What a powerful and instructive note to end our discussion on. So I'm sure you'll all agree that it's been an absolute honour being able to host and welcome Behrouz and Simon here and to listen to them in conversation. So please join me in thanking them for tonight's discussion. Thank you. [Applause]