SPECIAL FLIGHT
VOL SPÉCIAL
Switzerland, 2011
100 minutes
directed by: Fernand Melgar
The story of unwanted asylum-seekers, which unfolds as a dramatic thriller, reveals the cruelty behind the supposed humanity of one of the world’s best-developed state systems.
People awaiting their definite deportation from the Swiss territory are jailed at the special administrative detention center. Even though some of them spent years in Switzerland, where they worked, paid taxes, and started families, they are ordered to leave the country as soon their application for asylum is rejected. Although the application consideration process may take up to two years, the deportation is announced without any warning and its implementation is imminent. Behind the closed prison doors, tension rises with every day that passes. Wardens trained to praise humanist values are on one side, and on the other are men at the end of their journey, defeated by fear and anxiety. Relations of friendship and hatred, respect and revolt are built up until the announcement of the deportation, which is experienced like a stab. This relationship ends mostly in distress and humiliation. Those who refuse to leave are handcuffed, tied up and forcibly put on a plane. In this extreme situation, despair has a name: special flight.
Wholeheartedly devoted to this topic, the director Fernand Meglar has earned great esteem with his previous films, especially with “The Fortress,” which won the “Golden Leopard” award in Locarno three years ago. Supported by the ARTE television network, Meglar currently develops “Special Flight” as a web documentary.
A film characterized by astonishing intensity and exquisite documentary virtuosity.
Selector’s Word: Shocking it is this report from a place in Europe about the biggest question in modern Europe: How do we treat people who come to live in ”our” countries? This is shot in Switzerland but could be anywhere. It is amazing what the director has been able to catch in the name of humanity.
www.volspecial.ch
Fernand Melgar
Born in 1961 in Tangier, Morocco, into a family of Spanish emigrants. His parents smuggled him in with them when, in 1963, they emigrated to Switzerland as seasonal laborers. In the early eighties, he cut short his business studies in order to establish, together with several friends, Le Cabaret Orwell in Lausanne, soon a mecca for French-speaking Switzerland’s underground culture. During 1983 he began putting together various experimental films and TV reports. In 1985 he joined Climage, a group of independent filmmakers producing films that deal with social, cultural and historical issues. Together with them he has made around a dozen internationally awarded documentaries, now considered to be benchmarks on the topics of immigration and identity. Works as independent film director, editor and producer.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
FAMILY ALBUM (Album de famille), 1993
INDUCTION CLASS (Classe d’accueil), 1998
STORM IN A C-CUP (Remue-ménage), 2002
EXIT, The Right to Die (Exit, Le droit de mourir), 2005
THE FORTRESS (La forteresse), 2008
SPECIAL FLIGHT (Vol spécial), 2011
© 2011. CVK KVADRAT member of EDN