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Dance to Forget

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March 28, 2022 by kingsk

The documentary film “Neukölln Unlimited” follows an immigrant family as they struggle with the threat of being deported from what has been their home for the past 15 years. The three Lebanese children, Hussein, Lial, and Maradona, are pursuing their careers in music and dance, attempting to make enough money to keep their family together in Berlin, Germany. This clip is of Hussein, the oldest son, at dance practice talking with a friend about his immigration status. Hussein’s friend relates Hussein’s family’s situation to immigration in France. This proves the universality of the issue that families face along with fleeing their origin countries for either work or to avoid political uncertainties. His friend mentions that the people being deported had not ever lived in the countries they were sending them back to and they didn’t know the language. This is exactly like Hussein’s family, as his siblings would have to learn Arabic if they were deported. As the boys realized that discussing the issues were not going to improve the state of Hussein’s family’s immigration status, his friend tries to lighten the mood by bringing up his success in dance. His friend goes from sympathetic to playful and friendly. The mood change emphasizes the constant pushing back of emotions when the issues are unlikely to change without hard work. Hussein then expresses his reason behind his motivation. He states that he “dance(s) to forget”. It is easy to get lost in the unfortunate and seemingly endless threat from the place you call home. The family uses their talents to attempt to gain citizenship but also to cope with the pain of feeling like you are not welcome in your home.


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