Look Beyond Borders - A Four Minute Experiment
2,183 views · Published 25 May 2016 · 5:01 · Indexed 10 October 2026
Channel: Amnesty International USA · 2016 · Nonprofits & Activism
When talking about the problem of refugees, we use dehumanized language, which reduces human tragedy to numbers and statistics. But this suffering concerns real people, who – just like us - have families, loved ones, friends; their own stories, dreams, goals... Only when you sit down opposite a specific person and look into their eyes, you no longer see an anonymous refugee, one of the migrants, and notice the human before you, just like yourself – loving, suffering, dreaming. 20 years ago, psychologist Arthur Aron discovered that 4 minutes of looking into each other's eyes can bring people closer. Using this discovery, we decided to carry out a simple experiment, during which refugees and Europeans sat opposite each other and looked into each other's eyes. Clearly, it is most important to give each other time to better understand and get to know each other. The experiment was conducted in Berlin: the city, which - first of all - is a symbol of overcoming the divisions, and secondly, seems to be the centre of the contemporary Europe. We wanted the movie created on the basis of the experiment to be as symbolic as possible – and to touch upon the general divisions between people. The experiment participants were ordinary people. The situations were not staged; we wanted to get natural, spontaneous reactions. The people sitting opposite each other had not known each other before and saw each other for the first time during the experiment. What is important, the refugees mostly came from Syria and had not been living in Europe for longer than a year. CREDITS: Director: Bartosz Dombrowski (Papaya Films) DOP: Kuba Kijowski Editing: Katarzyna Orzechowska | Mateusz Romaszkan Music: Atanas Valkov Sound Design: Błażej Kafarski Producer: Siasia Seyfried Production dept. Kasia Wac Production Manager: Ania Stylińska Casting | refugees: Ania Alboth Camera Operator: Patricia Lewandowska Camera Operator: Magda Górfińska Camera Operator: Casey Cambell 1st Camera Assistant & Focus Puller: Nick Dietz Assistant & Focus Puller: Katharina Hauke | Yuri Salvador Gaffer: Konrad Pruski Digitalization: Haman Wawrzyniec DIT Martin Hecht Sound Engineer: Konrad Serowiecki Post Production: Rio de post - Sylwia Skrzypek Cinegate Berlin (Sebastian Enke | Gösta Hess | Florian Wimmer | Daniel Sippel | Andi and Stefan) Ewerk | Elaine Mathe Rio de Post Glośno Dreamsound Papaya Films | Kacper Sawicki Cut Cut | Maciej Kozłowski | Paweł Szczypek | Robert Cacaj Central Park Berlin | Sascha Wolfram & Roland Patzelt All participants All translators Isabella Sobieski Frank Hellwig Nicole Czop Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7XhrXUoD6U
