Leylet Europa

Leylet Europa is a 15 minute anima-doc film. Directed by Ronida Alsino and Léo Beaudoin, it is based on the testimony of 4 people who fled from Syria to Europe. As they tell their journey, their unique experiences blend into one another, allowing it to create collective picture without getting lost in the crowd of refugees.

Based on the voices of the protagonists, the visuals are kept minimal, playing with shades of black and white as a support base for the sound. Footage of the research trip in the Balkans have been included as well.

The project was initiated by Ronida Alsino and Hannah Platzer. In 2015, as a lot of people decided to flee Syria to Europe, the media coverage often reported on shock statements and brutal images. Leylet Europa was an attempt to go against the flow of the news and to rehumanise the people behind the numbers. Animation was later chosen as a medium for a variety of reasons: to guarantee a better anonymity of the protagonists, to merge together stories that are different while having the same goal, and to reduce the image content, sometimes resorting to a pitch black screen, in order to keep the focus on the voices. Léo Beaudoin then joined the team to work on the animation.

Leylet Europa is a student film created within the curriculum of the Academy of Media Arts of Cologne. It was financially supported by the Freundeskreis der KHM e.V. and the « Auf geht’s » Stipendium.

Credits

Sound design, mix and music: Joreng Jung
Animation: Jessica Poon, Juho Lee
Camera: Hannah Platzer, Bella Usabaev
Set design: Elenor Kopka
Compositing: Léo Beaudoin
Editing: Ronida Alsino
Color grading: Ewald Hentze
Supervision: Isabel Herguera
Project organisation: Ursula Reber

Selected in

International Short film festival Oberhausen 03.04.2024
International Animation Stuttgart 26.04.2024
Neisse Film festival 16.05.2024
Mönchengladbach Film evening “post migration Audiovisions” 15.01.2025
LAKFF Landshuter Film festival 21.03.2025