Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Morgane Dujmovic, Chargée de recherche CNRS, Géographe et politiste spécialiste des frontières et migrations, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)

This series of articles draws on a year of research conducted on board the Ocean Viking, the civilian search-and-rescue ship operated in the central Mediterranean by the NGO SOS Méditerranée. It explores the perspectives of exiled people based on testimonies from 110 survivors who were picked up while attempting the crossing from North Africa, as well as crew members’ experiences and the researcher’s creative collaborations on board the ship.

This is the second of a four-part series – read part one here and part three here, and explore an immersive French-language version of the series here.

Fragments of journeys

In all, 21 sketches were created in the workshops I conducted onboard the Ocean Viking. They tell fragments of journeys – routes that were sometimes smooth but often fraught, starting from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Syria, Palestine and Egypt.

Some journeys were very costly but quick and organised, such as those of some Bangladeshi individuals who had travelled from Dhaka to Zuwara via Dubai in just a few days. Others stretched and intertwined over several years, adapting to encounters, resources, dangers and the multiple wars and violence in those countries crossed.

Among 69 people who responded to the questionnaire, 37.6% had left their country of origin the same year. But 21.7% had been travelling for more than five years – and 11.5% for over ten years. The longest journeys began in countries as diverse as Nigeria, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and, in 60% of the cases studied, Syria. As one respondent explained:

I fled the Syrian army. I spent three years in prison and torture, saw terrible scenes. I was 18, I was not old enough to live or see such things.

2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015: the steady spread of departure dates for these journeys highlights the persistence of the conflicts that drive migration around the world. Motivations to continue these long journeys are often personal ambitions for a better life, such as being able to study or help family left behind – as was explained by a young Egyptian man: “I am the only son in my family. My parents are old and they are worried I won’t make it.”

The survey made it possible to outline the types of support received and the dangers encountered along the way. Alongside financial resources from personal savings or family loans, nearly 60% of respondents mentioned the importance of immaterial resources such as “advice from friends”, “psychological support from my husband”, or “information and emotional support from my niece”.

For some, the information received from loved ones seemed crucial at certain stages of the journey: as one respondent explained, it provided moral support to “survive in Libya”. Conversely, another participant confided it had been essential to hide the realities of their daily life in Libya from their family, in order “to hold on”.

Indeed, it was in this North African country that most difficulties were encountered: among the 136 situations of danger described, half were in Libya – compared with 35.3% at sea, 8.8% in the person’s country of origin, and 5.9% at other borders along their migration routes.

‘Inhumane acts’ against people in exile

The atrocities targeting people on the move in Libya are now well-documented. They appear in numerous sources including NGO reports and documentary films, as well as direct testimonies from those affected.

The findings of an independent UN Human Rights Council fact-finding mission, published in 2021, qualified these realities as crimes against humanity. The report described “reasonable grounds to believe that acts of murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, persecution and other inhumane acts committed against migrants form part of a systematic and widespread attack directed at this population, in furtherance of a State policy. As such, these acts may amount to crimes against humanity.”

Through the study on board the OV, participants were able to define, in their own words, the nature of the dangers they had experienced there. Their quotes conveyed subjective, embodied experiences reshaped by emotions – yet they were numerous and convergent enough to reconstruct what has been happening in Libya. The mechanisms of the reported violence were systemic: punitive detention combined with torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, racial and sexual violence endured or witnessed. And these acts were often cumulative:

During my first period in Libya, I was imprisoned six times, tortured, beaten. I can’t even remember the exact details.

The acts of violence involved perpetrators who were, to a greater or lesser degree, institutionalised, including coast guards, prison guards, mafias, militias and employers. They occurred across the entire country (Benghazi, Misrata, Sabratha, Sirte, Tripoli, Zawiya and Zuwara were the most frequently cited cities), but also in the desert and in detention sites at unknown locations. Omnipresent was the prospect of violent and arbitrary detention, which generated a presumption of widespread racism against foreigners:

The racism I experienced as an Egyptian is just unimaginable: kidnapping, theft, imprisonment.

Black people felt particularly targeted by such attacks. Among those who testified, an Ethiopian man trapped for four years in Libya described his constant sense of terror, linked to the repeated racist arrests he had endured:

People get kidnapped in Libya. They catch us and put us in prison because we don’t have papers. Then we have to pay more than US$1,000 to be released. It happened to me four times: two weeks, then a month, then two months, and finally a year. All because of my skin colour – because I am black. It lasted so long that my mind is too stressed from fear.

Such racial discrimination was confirmed by the UN Human Rights Council report in 2021, which found “evidence that most of the migrants detained are sub-Saharan Africans, and that they are treated in a harsher manner than other nationalities, which suggests discriminatory treatment.”

However, the risks of kidnapping and ransom would appear to spare no one on Libyan soil. Koné described them as a generalised and systemic practice:

There’s a business that many Libyans run. They put you in a taxi which sells you to those who put you in prison. Then they demand a ransom from your family to get you out. If the ransom isn’t paid, you’re made to work for free. In the end, in Libya you’re like merchandise: they let you enter the country only to make you work.

Several study participants had been caught in these networks, and their analyses afterwards converged on one point: the Libyan experience amounts to a vast system of exploitation through forced labour.

The facts reported match the International Labour Organization’s definitions of “human trafficking” and “modern slavery”, and were again confirmed by the UN report, which noted: “The only practicable means of escape is by paying large sums of money to the guards or engaging in forced labour or sexual favours inside or outside the detention centre for the benefit of private individuals.”

Ultimately, what Koné remembered most painfully was the feeling of shame:

I pity myself, my story, but I pity the people who went to prison even more. If your family can’t pay the ransom, they must take on debts, so it’s a problem you put on your family. Some people went crazy because of it.

Mapping as testimony

While the accounts of time spent in Libya were always bitter and often horrifying, sometimes beyond words, the study revealed a strong desire to bear witness to what happens there – not only for the general public, but for those who might attempt the same journey:

I want to say that in Libya, there are many women like me who are in a very difficult situation.

I don’t have much to say, except that so many people are suffering even more than I did in Libya.

I don’t advise anyone to come by this route.

To accompany these stories, our mapping workshops aboard the OV served as an invitation – an opportunity to share experiences without having to put traumatic events into words.

At first, the collective mappings organised on the OV’s deck allowed participants to bring out the main themes they wanted to address, according to three sequences: “our past”, “our present”, and “the future we imagine”. My role was to create an appropriate framework for expression, guide participants toward accessible graphic techniques, and enable the sharing of creations through their gradual display on the deck.

Workshops were then offered to small groups or individuals inside containers – spaces that were more conducive to the confidentiality of intimate stories.

One of the tasks suggested by participants was to represent the zones of danger felt throughout the migration journey — where Libya inevitably stood out. From these personal pathways, a second exercise was introduced: describing the experience of danger at the Libyan scale, building on the places already mentioned.

Participants were encouraged to enrich their sketched maps with personal illustrations and narrative legends in their native languages, which were later translated into English.

Ahmed’s experience of Libya

On his map, Ahmed, a Syrian-born participant, depicted “insecurity” in Tripoli, “bad treatment and extortion of money” in Benghazi, and “violation of rights” in Zuwara.

His illustration shows a scene of ordinary, widespread crime: “the Libyan” shooting at “foreigners” evokes the collective violence that Ahmed described as occurring all across Libya. This emotional and participatory method served as a language for sharing stories that were difficult to verbalise, and for mediating them.

Beyond what these drawings facilitated for those sharing their stories, they allowed myself and others observing these violent images to contextualise them within a complex web of factors across time and geographical space.

Now read part three in this four-part series, or explore an immersive French-language version here.

Morgane Dujmovic does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Voices from the sea, part two: using maps and drawings, survivors share the dangers they faced on their journeys to reach the ship – https://theconversation.com/voices-from-the-sea-part-two-using-maps-and-drawings-survivors-share-the-dangers-they-faced-on-their-journeys-to-reach-the-ship-267135

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Morgane Dujmovic, Chargée de recherche CNRS, Géographe et politiste spécialiste des frontières et migrations, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)

This is the final part of our series drawing on a year of research conducted on board the Ocean Viking, the civilian search-and-rescue ship operated in the central Mediterranean by the NGO SOS Méditerranée. It explores the perspectives of exiled people based on testimonies from 110 survivors who were picked up while attempting the crossing from North Africa, as well as crew members’ experiences and the researcher’s creative collaborations on board the ship.

Catch up on parts one, two and three, and explore an immersive French-language version of the series here.

Solidarity at sea and autonomy

While my study onboard the Ocean Viking search-and-rescue ship highlighted civil rescue operations by one of the many NGOs now present in the central Mediterranean, it is important to emphasise the significance of autonomous crossings – and the many rescues and acts of solidarity at sea carried out by exiled people themselves.

For example, Ellie, a member of the SOS Méditerranée search-and-rescue (SAR) team, recounted a rescue during which two vessels in distress assisted each other:

There are people I remember very well. They had left through the Tunisian corridor in a fibreglass boat and came across another boat, wooden, which was adrift. When we arrived, we had this fibreglass boat in distress towing a wooden boat in distress, with 30 or 40 people on board. It was like a rescue of a rescue – quite incredible, this solidarity among the people at sea.

NGO crews thus seek a balance between maintaining the autonomy of exiled people, and the management of large numbers of people onboard boats in sometimes extreme conditions (often referred to as “crowd control”).

Our study on the OV precisely explored the expectations of rescued people in the immediate aftermath of rescue, known as the post-rescue phase. Their opinions made it possible to formulate several operational recommendations for the days of navigation until the rescue ship reaches a safe port in Europe.

One of the most striking findings was the need for direct communication with loved ones – particularly to inform them that the crossing had not ended fatally.

Support and information from family and friends are among the main resources available to people on the move at different stages of migration (mentioned by nearly 60% of respondents). But it is not uncommon for rescued people to lose their phone during the crossing, and even when that’s not the case, connectivity is limited in the middle of the sea.

Psychological and physical impacts

The study also revealed both the physical and psychological impacts of violence in Libya, which affect the mere ability to meet basic needs. Participants mentioned their difficulties eating, as well as finding rest and respite:

In prison we only ate once a day, we could wash only once a month.

My back is very painful, I cannot sleep.

My mind is too stressed and I can’t control it.

These traces are also visible in the countless graffiti drawings left on the Ocean Viking’s walls over the years.

In this chain of violent borders, the stay on the rescue ship represented a breathing space, judging by the open-ended comments offered at the end of our questionnaire:

We are treated like your brothers here; it’s so different from Libya!

I don’t have much to say, but I will never forget what happened here.

In the middle of the sea, when the number of people on board allowed it, we would sometimes witness moments of regained intimacy – or, conversely, collective jubilation, most notably when a port assigned by Italy as a landing point for the survivors was announced.

As for the mapping workshops and the questionnaire study I conducted, participant feedback suggests that they were able to engage in a form of empowerment – or at least, in the power to reflect and to narrate their experiences.

It’s the first time in a very long time that someone asked me what I think and what my opinions are about things.“

A sense of regained control over their actions emerged as the prospect of disembarkation and a new life in Europe drew near. As we sailed towards the Italian coast, the drawings and comments gathered from survivors on our collective exercises illustrated their increasingly concrete dreams and imaginings:

I hope to quickly get a residence permit in Germany.

I’m thinking to give back the money I borrowed to its owners, learn the language fast, and see my family safe and healthy.

A new form of violence

One can imagine the emotion of setting foot for the first time in a European port for those who finally make it. But what is less often imagined is that this step can represent a new form of violence. In Ancona, for example, Koné recalled the impression left by the heavy deployment of forces when they arrived:

When I got off the boat, I saw so many sirens that I thought: ‘Are there only ambulances in Italy?’

The welcome committee for people disembarking in Italy after being rescued at sea is composed of national security authorities (police and the carabinieri), Italian health services, the Italian Red Cross and Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency – whose intervention is systematically oriented around a single question: “Who was driving the boat from Libya?” In other words: “Who could be prosecuted for facilitating unauthorised entry into the territory of the European Union?”

At the level of international search-and-rescue (SAR) conventions, the rescue officially ends once people are disembarked in a “place of safety”. For the SOS Méditerranée crews, it is customary to consider that the work stops there – even if human relationships sometimes continue afterwards.

For civilian search-and-rescue NGOs, disembarkation is quickly followed by many administrative procedures and interrogations that they must undergo to avoid the risk of vessel detention, which would prevent a ship going back out into the operational area to continue its rescue missions.

After several days aboard the Ocean Viking together, the goodbyes are tinged with both joy and anxiety, as we know that for each of these individuals, a new journey of struggle is beginning.

In this fleeting moment of grace, when dreams touch the ground, I am struck by the profound power of silence.

The silence of the sea that swallowed so many bodies.

The focused silence of rescue teams when RHIBs race toward distressed boats.

The stunned silence aboard the same RHIBs bringing people back to the mothership, still dazed from escaping shipwreck.

The exhausted silence of survivors regaining their strength; the palpable silence as I listen to their stories on the deck of the Ocean Viking.

The tentative silence as the Italian coast appears for the first time.

The silence of European institutions, which conceal and obstruct the efforts to save lives at sea – and on land, by supporting interceptions and forced returns to Libya.

And finally, my own silence, faced with the awareness of my powerlessness toward the exiled people I met at sea:

I know you’re writing – it’s good, people will see it. But the story will go on.

---

Acknowledgements

Heartfelt thanks go to everyone who participated in this onboard study and shared their stories, especially Koné and Shakir, as well as to all the teams at sea and on land who supported my long-term research, in particular Carla Melki and Amine Boudani. I also warmly thank Rafik Arfaoui and Elizabeth Hessek for their assistance with translations from Arabic and into English.

Note: some real first names were used in these articles and others were changed , according to the preferences of the people concerned.

---

You can also read this entire series in French

Interactive version: En pleine mer: Un an sur l’Ocean Viking

À bord de l’« Ocean Viking » (1) : paroles de personnes exilées secourues en mer

À bord de l’« Ocean Viking » (2) : avant la mer, les périls des parcours

À bord de l’« Ocean Viking » (3) : échapper à la Libye, survivre à la mer

À bord de l’« Ocean Viking » (4) : quand les rêves touchent terre

Morgane Dujmovic does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Voices from the sea, part four: when dreams reach land, what’s next? – https://theconversation.com/voices-from-the-sea-part-four-when-dreams-reach-land-whats-next-267139

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Morgane Dujmovic, Chargée de recherche CNRS, Géographe et politiste spécialiste des frontières et migrations, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)

This is the final part of our series drawing on a year of research conducted on board the Ocean Viking, the civilian search-and-rescue ship operated in the central Mediterranean by the NGO SOS Méditerranée. It explores the perspectives of exiled people based on testimonies from 110 survivors who were picked up while attempting the crossing from North Africa, as well as crew members’ experiences and the researcher’s creative collaborations on board the ship.

Catch up on parts one, two and three, and explore an immersive French-language version of the series here.

Solidarity at sea and autonomy

While my study onboard the Ocean Viking search-and-rescue ship highlighted civil rescue operations by one of the many NGOs now present in the central Mediterranean, it is important to emphasise the significance of autonomous crossings – and the many rescues and acts of solidarity at sea carried out by exiled people themselves.

For example, Ellie, a member of the SOS Méditerranée search-and-rescue (SAR) team, recounted a rescue during which two vessels in distress assisted each other:

There are people I remember very well. They had left through the Tunisian corridor in a fibreglass boat and came across another boat, wooden, which was adrift. When we arrived, we had this fibreglass boat in distress towing a wooden boat in distress, with 30 or 40 people on board. It was like a rescue of a rescue – quite incredible, this solidarity among the people at sea.

NGO crews thus seek a balance between maintaining the autonomy of exiled people, and the management of large numbers of people onboard boats in sometimes extreme conditions (often referred to as “crowd control”).

Our study on the OV precisely explored the expectations of rescued people in the immediate aftermath of rescue, known as the post-rescue phase. Their opinions made it possible to formulate several operational recommendations for the days of navigation until the rescue ship reaches a safe port in Europe.

One of the most striking findings was the need for direct communication with loved ones – particularly to inform them that the crossing had not ended fatally.

Support and information from family and friends are among the main resources available to people on the move at different stages of migration (mentioned by nearly 60% of respondents). But it is not uncommon for rescued people to lose their phone during the crossing, and even when that’s not the case, connectivity is limited in the middle of the sea.

Psychological and physical impacts

The study also revealed both the physical and psychological impacts of violence in Libya, which affect the mere ability to meet basic needs. Participants mentioned their difficulties eating, as well as finding rest and respite:

In prison we only ate once a day, we could wash only once a month.

My back is very painful, I cannot sleep.

My mind is too stressed and I can’t control it.

These traces are also visible in the countless graffiti drawings left on the Ocean Viking’s walls over the years.

In this chain of violent borders, the stay on the rescue ship represented a breathing space, judging by the open-ended comments offered at the end of our questionnaire:

We are treated like your brothers here; it’s so different from Libya!

I don’t have much to say, but I will never forget what happened here.

In the middle of the sea, when the number of people on board allowed it, we would sometimes witness moments of regained intimacy – or, conversely, collective jubilation, most notably when a port assigned by Italy as a landing point for the survivors was announced.

As for the mapping workshops and the questionnaire study I conducted, participant feedback suggests that they were able to engage in a form of empowerment – or at least, in the power to reflect and to narrate their experiences.

It’s the first time in a very long time that someone asked me what I think and what my opinions are about things.“

A sense of regained control over their actions emerged as the prospect of disembarkation and a new life in Europe drew near. As we sailed towards the Italian coast, the drawings and comments gathered from survivors on our collective exercises illustrated their increasingly concrete dreams and imaginings:

I hope to quickly get a residence permit in Germany.

I’m thinking to give back the money I borrowed to its owners, learn the language fast, and see my family safe and healthy.

A new form of violence

One can imagine the emotion of setting foot for the first time in a European port for those who finally make it. But what is less often imagined is that this step can represent a new form of violence. In Ancona, for example, Koné recalled the impression left by the heavy deployment of forces when they arrived:

When I got off the boat, I saw so many sirens that I thought: ‘Are there only ambulances in Italy?’

The welcome committee for people disembarking in Italy after being rescued at sea is composed of national security authorities (police and the carabinieri), Italian health services, the Italian Red Cross and Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency – whose intervention is systematically oriented around a single question: “Who was driving the boat from Libya?” In other words: “Who could be prosecuted for facilitating unauthorised entry into the territory of the European Union?”

At the level of international search-and-rescue (SAR) conventions, the rescue officially ends once people are disembarked in a “place of safety”. For the SOS Méditerranée crews, it is customary to consider that the work stops there – even if human relationships sometimes continue afterwards.

For civilian search-and-rescue NGOs, disembarkation is quickly followed by many administrative procedures and interrogations that they must undergo to avoid the risk of vessel detention, which would prevent a ship going back out into the operational area to continue its rescue missions.

After several days aboard the Ocean Viking together, the goodbyes are tinged with both joy and anxiety, as we know that for each of these individuals, a new journey of struggle is beginning.

In this fleeting moment of grace, when dreams touch the ground, I am struck by the profound power of silence.

The silence of the sea that swallowed so many bodies.

The focused silence of rescue teams when RHIBs race toward distressed boats.

The stunned silence aboard the same RHIBs bringing people back to the mothership, still dazed from escaping shipwreck.

The exhausted silence of survivors regaining their strength; the palpable silence as I listen to their stories on the deck of the Ocean Viking.

The tentative silence as the Italian coast appears for the first time.

The silence of European institutions, which conceal and obstruct the efforts to save lives at sea – and on land, by supporting interceptions and forced returns to Libya.

And finally, my own silence, faced with the awareness of my powerlessness toward the exiled people I met at sea:

I know you’re writing – it’s good, people will see it. But the story will go on.

---

Acknowledgements

Heartfelt thanks go to everyone who participated in this onboard study and shared their stories, especially Koné and Shakir, as well as to all the teams at sea and on land who supported my long-term research, in particular Carla Melki and Amine Boudani. I also warmly thank Rafik Arfaoui and Elizabeth Hessek for their assistance with translations from Arabic and into English.

Note: some real first names were used in these articles and others were changed , according to the preferences of the people concerned.

---

You can also read this entire series in French

Interactive version: En pleine mer: Un an sur l’Ocean Viking

À bord de l’« Ocean Viking » (1) : paroles de personnes exilées secourues en mer

À bord de l’« Ocean Viking » (2) : avant la mer, les périls des parcours

À bord de l’« Ocean Viking » (3) : échapper à la Libye, survivre à la mer

À bord de l’« Ocean Viking » (4) : quand les rêves touchent terre

Morgane Dujmovic does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Voices from the sea, part four: when the survivors and their dreams reach land, what’s next? – https://theconversation.com/voices-from-the-sea-part-four-when-the-survivors-and-their-dreams-reach-land-whats-next-267139

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Louis Bayman, Associate Professor in Department of Film Studies, University of Southampton

It was a classic year at this year’s BFI London Film Festival, which took place earlier this month. If there was any observable shift, it was the number of filmmakers who turned to smaller-scale dramas of human connection, with action, fantasy and, to some degree, politics less prominent than usual.

Even the big releases seemed to turn inwards. The opening night gala marked a break with precedent by not showcasing a major British release. Instead there was a screening of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the third in the Benoit Blanc comedy detective series, hailed as a return to form after the rather grandiose Glass Onion.

The films that really excelled at this year’s festival succeeded in taking apparently small subjects and revealing the depths within. Blue Moon is set in the theatre bar on the opening night of Oklahoma!, the first collaboration between legendary partnership Rodgers and Hammerstein. Rodgers’ previous writing partner, Lorenz Hart, sits there drowning his sorrows, regaling fellow bar patrons with tales of showbiz glamour and trying to hold onto his fading hopes.

Directed by Richard Linklater, it’s a tour-de-force by Ethan Hawke as Hart, by turns amused, melancholy and sardonic in his take on the power of entertainment to brighten and conceal the disappointments of life.

Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet adapts Maggie O’Farrell’s novel about the son who died prior to Shakespeare writing Hamlet. It is a two-hander between Paul Mescal as Shakespeare and Jessie Buckley as his wife Agnes as they become estranged by personal tragedy and Shakespeare’s pursuit of the London stage.

In an astonishing closing sequence, Agnes travels to London to see the play her husband abandoned her for, its poetic questioning of the meaning of a life lived under the shadow of grief transcending the division between author and stage, imitation and life.

Loss seemed to be the theme of the festival, and the power of art to provide not only an expression of loss but an imaginative trace of a past that cannot, however, be relived. Oliver Hermanus’s The History of Sound follows two musicologists (Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor) over one winter as they collect the folk music of rural America and develop a more intimate bond. Their eventual separation makes the film a document of the loss of both an older way of life and a brief moment of human connection.

Pablo Trapero’s & Sons features a famous but reclusive author who invites his two estranged sons to his mansion to ask them to look after their half-brother after he dies. But there’s a twist that makes the two brothers wonder if they have ended up in the plot of one of their father’s novels.

Even Paolo Sorrentino, a director prone to gaudy exuberance, turned to introspection with La Grazia. Toni Servillo plays a fictional Italian president reflecting on the decisions that await in his final months of service, while mourning the loss of his beloved wife and trying to maintain his connection with his daughter.

James Sweeney’s Twinless was the standout comedy of the festival, a laugh-out-loud film that could probably best be described as a buddy movie, about two men who meet in a support group for twins whose siblings have died.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You starts off as a fairly gentle account of the stresses of motherhood. But the escalating anxiety and absurdity end up making this a white-knuckle ride, centred on an Oscar-worthy performance from Rose Byrne. There’s also a nicely sardonic supporting role from Conan O’Brien as her exasperated therapist.

Still on the theme of children, Train Dreams features an impressive Joel Edgerton as a logger who spends his life waiting for the return of his lost wife and child, secluded from the passage of the decades amid the grandeur of the American pine forests.

Personal and political

Where films took a more overt political stance, they were again more likely to zero in on the intimate rather than the epic. The Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who has faced state repression for his social criticism, presented It Was Just an Accident. This stunning work follows a man who thinks he might have found the torturer who tormented him in prison. The film ultimately poses the question of how one can live not during, but after, atrocity.

Coming very much from the midst of atrocity, The Voice of Hind Rajab features the real audio recordings of a six-year-old girl who called the Red Crescent emergency line in Gaza. She is the only survivor in a car full of her dead relatives, and her rescue would only take eight minutes, but the route has to be agreed first with the Israeli Defence Forces. The hours of waiting that ensue become an utterly devastating account of the reality of occupation.

In another break with precedent, a documentary, Lucrecia Martel’s Landmarks, about the murdered indigenous activist Javier Chocobar, won the official festival competition. Combining documentary footage with Orwell’s writing, Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5 is a compelling documentary examination of propaganda and power.

A number of films missed the mark in my view. Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly has a great cast (George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup) but not much else to recommend it. Edward Berger’s follow up to Conclave, Ballad Of A Small Player, lacks the dramatic focus of his earlier film.

The biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, Daniel Day-Lewis’s return to the cinema in his son Ronan Day-Lewis’s Anemone, and Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut, Chronology of Water, all failed to live up to their promise.

Whether the turn towards more intimate dramas is a sign of a larger trend remains to be seen. But this year, the misses were greatly outnumbered by the hits, and there will be plenty of films to enjoy in the coming year.

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Louis Bayman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. London Film Festival: a hit year for human dramas – the films to look out for in 2026 – https://theconversation.com/london-film-festival-a-hit-year-for-human-dramas-the-films-to-look-out-for-in-2026-268054

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Philip Newall, Lecturer in the School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol

Gambling advertising is everywhere. Even people who have never placed a bet are familiar with slogans like “Gamble responsibly,” “When the fun stops” and “Take time to think”.

But these industry-developed messages could soon change, with the government and the gambling regulator working to create independent warnings for gambling, much like those found on tobacco and alcohol packaging.

Our research has long argued that such changes are needed. Australia took this step in in 2023, imposing health warnings for gambling advertisements and websites.

By studying how gamblers perceive Australia’s messaging, we’ve identified which warnings are likely to be the most effective in deterring people from gambling. Australia’s warnings fall roughly into four categories: loss-based, positive emotional messages, counter-industry messages and self-appraisal.

Loss-based messages warn people about the likelihood of losing money from gambling. The Australian examples include: “Chances are you’re about to lose,” “You win some. You lose more” and “What are you prepared to lose today? Set a deposit limit.”

In a paper published earlier this year, we asked 4,000 gamblers to rate ten pre-existing and novel (created for the study) loss-based messages. We found that the best-ranked message was the novel “99% of gamblers lose in the long run.”

This message was based on a gambling company executive candidly telling a UK parliamentary committee: “99% of the customers who play on our sites will lose, so you’re probably losing more if you play more.” Our findings suggest that concrete information is received better than the vaguer Australian messages.

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Read more:
The ‘responsible gambling’ mantra does nothing to prevent harm. It probably makes things worse

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Positive emotional messages, like Australia’s “Imagine what you could be buying instead,” communicate the positives of not gambling.

Following a similar methodology to the previous study, we found that two novel positive messages scored highest: “Quitting gambling can help you with the relationships that matter the most to you” and “Don’t gamble on your happiness: do something else that will make you happy today.”

Such messages reflect how harms from gambling losses are not just financial, but also psychological, and health and relationship-related. The Australian warning scored joint third overall – good, but not the very best.

Loss-based messages appeared more effective for people experiencing low levels of gambling harm, while positive emotional messages resonated more strongly with those at high harm levels. This finding was based on participants’ responses to statements like “this message is relevant to me” and “this message makes me want to gamble less”.

Self-reflection

We also conducted a study on the third category of messages: counter-industry. These challenge industry narratives regarding gambling and personal responsibility.

Here, the three highest-rated messages came from existing sources, including, “The main purpose of gambling companies is to maximise profit, generated through customer losses” (from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority anti-gambling harms campaign), and the succinct “Gambling products are designed to be addictive” (from Gambling Understood).

Importantly, counter-industry messages began to appear relevant to participants at lower levels of gambling harm than the previous two categories.

The last category of messages is designed to help people to think about their own gambling differently and therefore change their behaviour. These are called self-appraisal messages: “Think. Is this a bet you really want to place?”, “What’s gambling really costing you?” and “What are you really gambling with?”

Self-appraisal messages have a long history in gambling research. These messages have been shown to reduce gambling when shown as pop-ups on slot machines. We are planning to test these in an upcoming study and compare the best performers to those in the other three categories.

Overall, we know that different warnings work better for different audiences. But even if there were truly one “best” gambling warning, policymakers should continue to create new messages.

Messages lose their effectiveness as they are repeated. Research shows that warnings about addictive and harmful products are particularly susceptible to these “wear-out” effects. Novel messages are therefore more memorable.

But given the life-shattering toll that gambling addiction can take, any changes to the industry-backed messages are welcome.

Philip Newall was a member of the Advisory Board for Safer Gambling from 2022 to 2025 – an advisory group of the Gambling Commission in Great Britain. In the last three years, Philip has contributed to research projects funded by the Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling, Alberta Gambling Research Institute, BA/Leverhulme, Canadian Institute for Health Research, Clean Up Gambling, Gambling Research Australia, and the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation. Philip has received other funding from the Belgium Ministry of Justice, the Economic and Social Research Institute, the Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling and Greo Evidence Insights.

Jamie Torrance has received funding from Gambling Research Exchange Ontario, the Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling (AFSG), the International Centre for Responsible Gambling and the Economic and Social Research Council.

Leonardo Cohen received open-access funding from Gambling Research Exchange Ontario (GREO) and has received funding from British Academy/Leverhulme.

– ref. What messages are the most effective to deter gambling? – https://theconversation.com/what-messages-are-the-most-effective-to-deter-gambling-264224

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Elizabeth Gregory, Lecturer in Education, University of Manchester

The government has announced that consultation will begin on a new vocational qualification for England: V-levels.

These are intended to replace a number of existing technical routes currently available to post-16 learners, and make it possible for students to combine academic and vocational courses. V-levels will, the government claims, streamline the options available to students and offer a clearer pathway to both higher education and the workplace.

Few would disagree that the vocational sector in England needs a shake-up. But is the new qualification really the solution the government promises?

V-levels are planned to begin in September 2027 as part of a gradual four-year rollout. Each V-level will equate to 360 guided learning hours, the same as one A-level. Possible subjects may include arts, craft and design, music and music performance, education and early years, legal services, and travel and tourism.

The equivalence with A-levels means that students should be able choose to take several V-levels in different subjects. They could even mix and match them with A-level subjects, rather than having to make a choice between an academic and a vocational route.

This contrasts with other vocational options available to young people after their GCSEs such as apprenticeships and T-levels, the latter of which are equivalent to three A-levels but focus on a single, specifically technical, subject.

In theory, students can currently mix A-levels with another type of work-related qualification, the BTEC, but in practice this option isn’t widely available. It is envisaged that the new V-levels will replace BTECs, which will be gradually de-funded.

The new qualifications are proposed as part of the government’s recent policy document on post-16 education and skills. They form part of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plans for two thirds of young people to either go to university or achieve a technical qualification by simplifying the “confusing” and “fragmented” landscape currently faced by 16-year-olds and their families.

If successful, the shift in focus away from Tony Blair’s aspirations for 50% of young people to go to university could be a significant step in promoting parity between academic and vocational pathways.

If students will indeed be able to mix A-levels and V-levels, the new initiative represents a significant step towards breaking down the perceived divide between academic and vocational qualifications. But this will only hold true if students are able and willing to combine them in the way the government suggests.

However, V-levels will involve more non-examination assessment than A-levels. This may mean that students continue to see A-levels as a more prestigious accreditation.

There is also the risk that some higher education institutions may not consider a V-level the same standard as an A-level when assessing entry requirements. Their smaller size may even mean that V-levels are seen as having less status than the BTECs they replace.

Many of the proposed V-level subjects are already available as a single-subject BTEC, but the new qualification will mean less commitment to choosing a specialist area at a young age.

In theory, young people might therefore be able to choose a V-level in, say, criminology alongside A-levels in subjects such as law and sociology. In practice, it remains to be seen how easy it will be for schools to offer such flexibility to their students.

Students wishing to specialise will be left with one option: a T-level in a single subject. The consultation papers state these have demonstrated a “strong performance” since their introduction in 2020, although this has been contested in some quarters.

While the de-funding of BTECs appears to reduce the options available, the government promises T-levels will “continue to grow”, with proposed new subjects including sports science, care services, music technology and performing arts. However, some of these will require the development of the appropriate occupational standards – a description of an occupation set by Skills England – first.

The proposals have been described as a “big step forward” in their ambition for “a more joined-up system” by the Association of Colleges. Others, including the Sixth Form Colleges Association, have sounded a note of caution over the “significant qualification gap that will open up when BTECs are scrapped”.

The intentions behind the new proposals seem positive. Previous vocational offerings after GCSEs have assumed students are ready to specialise at 16. The size of the qualifications available have made it difficult for students to combine academic and vocational qualifications in the way imagined here.

Elizabeth Gregory does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What are V-levels, England’s new post-16 qualification, and will they improve vocational education? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-v-levels-englands-new-post-16-qualification-and-will-they-improve-vocational-education-268118