In the film “LET THEM GROW HERE!”, Produced by a collective of filmmakers and available from March 5, 2007, the children of “sans-papiers” take turns on the screen. They all want their families to be regularized. With their adolescent words, they express their need for support and mobilization by their side. They also explain their daily fear of the arrest or deportation of their parents.
The 2 minutes and 10 seconds film will be screened in cinemas from Wednesday March 7, 2007 (Art and Essays rooms, MK2 network …). 400 copies are already available for national distribution.
350 cinema professionals contributed to the development of the document, including big names in cinema, be they directors, producers, actors, technicians.
The film is the culmination of several months of work carried out by a collective of filmmakers and the Reseau Education Sans Frontières (RESF) It was conceived and conceived with children in writing workshops, surrounded by filmmakers, teachers and RESF activists.
“LET US GROW HERE!” will support a national petition of the same name (see below), which is launched at the same time as the film throughout France.
This film must be widely distributed so that it contributes to broadening the mobilization and support for foreign families in an irregular situation.
To this end, each reader of this press release is invited to send it to those registered in their address book from Monday, March 5. All together, we can be stronger and launch an even more powerful movement of opinion which all the families that RESF supports are waiting for to finally obtain their regularization.
Paris, March 7, 2007
To watch the film “LET THEM GROW HERE”, click here (RESF website) .
To sign the national petition “LET THEM GROW HERE” click here (RESF website)
THE CALL
We are children of “undocumented”
An undocumented person is someone who does not have a residence permit even if he has been in France for a long time.
Like many of you, our parents came from elsewhere.
They fled violence, misery.
They came to work and give us a better life
Some of us were born here.
With or without papers, France is our country.
We live in furnished hotels, apartments, crowded rooms.
Every day we are afraid.
We are afraid that our parents will be arrested by the police when they go to work, when they take the metro.
We are afraid that we will put them in prison, that our families will be separated and that they will send us back to countries we do not know.
We think about it all the time.
At school too.
Is it normal to be afraid when you go to school?
Last summer we and our parents hoped to finally have papers.
We made files, we spent days and nights in line in front of the prefectures.
We registered in offices.
We believed that we would be regularized, that the nightmare would be over.
We met all the criteria, but we were told: no.
We came openly with our names, our addresses.
Those who got their papers had the same file as us. And yet we were told: no.
Arbitrarily.
Now we are in danger and we have to hide.
Why this injustice?
We no longer want to live in fear.
We want France to adopt us.
We want to be regularized.
Let us grow up here.