Eldorado

In Eldorado, the Swiss filmmaker Markus Imhoof uses his own memories of an Italian refugee girl that stayed with his family during WWII to frame and intersperse his scenes of today's refugees being picked up in the Mediterranean Sea and taken to Italy, to camps, or worse. This framework not only adds a deeply personal note to the movie, but it also provides welcome relief in between the often harrowing scenes of the modern refugee's ordeals. Through showing many different perspectives -- those of the rescuers who can't provide real help, those of the officials who are "just following orders," and by adding commentary on the political context, the film gives a broad picture of the situation while calling out those profiting from and exploiting the refugees. And though we only briefly meet some of the individual people, we are given enough of their stories to feel touched by their plight. A deeply human work by (IMHO) Switzerland's finest filmmaker.