In northern Morocco lies the Spanish enclave of Melilla: Europe on African Land. On the mountain above live over a thousand hopeful African migrants, watching the land border, a fence system separating Morocco and Spain. Abou from Mali is one of them – the protagonist in front of the camera, as well as the person behind it. For over a year, he has ceaselessly persisted in attempting to jump the fence.
Gerson Liebl, grandson of a German colonial official from Togo, has been fighting for 30 years for the preservation of German citizenship and a right of residence in Germany. As a last resort, he resorts to a hunger strike. The images of his unflinching perseverance in front of Berlin's Red City Hall are accompanied on the soundtrack by statements, testimonies, paragraphs, legal texts, political viewpoints and excuses – then and now.
When Abou from Mali finally made it to Europe, it felt like a new life had started for him. A life, that offered a future. The film he made about his journey from Africa to Europe gets shown all over the world and throughout Germany, where Abou lives as an asylum seeker. His life oscillates between that of an artist with a voice, who is invited to screenings and events, and the isolation and boredom in a remote refugee centre. An essayistic reflection about Europe’s invisible borders and filmmaking as an act of self-empowerment.
