With their video series [Unseen], filmmakers Rodrigo Iniguez & Conor McCann have put together short glimpses into the lives and experiences of new Canadians living in Newfoundland. “In short,” says Iniguez, “our series hopes to highlight and celebrate our different experiences and our shared home.”
Nadia – Ecuador
Meet Nadia, a student from Ecuador whose teacher, in front of her classmates, called her a drug dealer based on her nationality. The video talks about what she did about that, and, how media helps to enforce the stereotypes feeding these kinds of racist misconceptions.
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Pedro – Palestine
Pedro tells us the story of a war breaking out and his family going on a treacherous journey in search of gas. What should’ve have been a 20-minute excursion turned into a 6-hour nightmare of wading through indiscriminate fire.
“The worst part about a war, what people don’t take into account, is people surviving the war,” he says. Civilians like Pedro, who weren’t fighting on either side of the combat, were just trying to eat and stay alive, afraid to leave their own homes for fear of the bullets and bombs claiming innocent lives in their streets.
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It is very hard to know kids live in countries in war. We usually forget about kids trying to survive the war, families eating whatever they can find in empty buildings.