With an estimated 35 million people currently displaced from their homes, the world now has more refugees than at any other time since World War II.
While media reports thrive on sensationalism and populist politicians adopt fear-mongering campaigns, the lives of people fleeing deadly conflict hang in the balance.
Without diminishing the extent of the crisis, Adrift contextualizes the debate around migration, highlighting the historical basis of the world’s engagement with refugees. No stranger to the big issues of American life, veteran filmmaker Rory Kennedy traces the US and global response to major conflicts including recent humanitarian crises in Ukraine and Syria, while also supporting a unified and compassionate response that centers dignity. With Adrift, Kennedy delivers an arresting, evidence-driven work of advocacy for the rights of refugees around the world.
Kennedy launches a welcome intervention into the ongoing global refugee crisis. Adopting personal and historical perspectives as well as testimonies from experts and relevant stakeholders, Adrift is a passionate and evidence-driven appeal for compassion and respect for the rights of refugees.
Kennedy is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker, whose work includes American Hollow (1999); A Boy’s Life (2003); Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (2007), for which she received Best Documentary Oscar® nomination and won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Nonfiction Special ; Ethel (2012), a biographical portrait of her mother, Ethel Kennedy; Last Days in Vietnam (2014); Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton (2017); and Downfall: The Case Against Boeing (2022).
Adrift is among a barrage of great documentaries at MVFF46, including Maureen Gosling’s The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane and noteworthy conversations with MVFF Directors Night on Friday, October 13 with writer/director Erica Tremblay, with her moving narrative debut Fancy Dance, set on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation in Oklahoma and starring Lily Gladstone (The Unknown Country, MVFF45); and acclaimed Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaking duo Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (The Rescue, MVFF 2021) will be returning to MVFF with their narrative directorial debut, the inspirational Nyad starring Jodie Foster and Annette Bening. MORE INFO & TIX.