Witnessing Exile | Global Migration Processes

Witnessing Exile

In 2015-16, Europe was the destination of nearly one million refugees, the majority of whom traveled the historic route of the Balkans in order to reach Germany. Witnessing Exile captures with simplicity and authenticity the trace left by this exodus among those who have witnessed it along the way. Danièle Bélanger went to meet them on one of these roads. The film presents intimate testimonies and powerful analyses of people whose lives were transformed by this major event in the world’s migratory history.

Film website

Watch the film on Vimeo

Photographic contribution

Michel Huneault is a documentary photographer and visual artist. Before devoting himself entirely to photography starting in 2008, he worked for more than ten years in international development. He holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a Rotary Peace Fellow, focusing on the role of collective memory in the aftermath of large-scale trauma. First in Berkeley and then in New York, he was a student and assistant to photographer Gilles Peress of the Magnum agency. Today, Michel Huneault is still interested in development, trauma, migration and other complex geographic realities, including the impacts of climate change. In 2016, he was awarded the Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship to continue his research on migration issues. In 2018, ROXHAM, his visual and sound project on the passage of asylum seekers from the United States to Canada was adapted into virtual reality by the National Film Board of Canada.