Filmmaker Noaz Deshe on His Greek Refugee Camp Film Xoftex
Filmmaker Noaz Deshe has recently been interviewed about the creation of his new film Xoftex on asylum seekers and Europe’s right wing shift. Xoftex premiered in the 2024 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Xoftex is the name of a Greek refugee camp which houses Syrian and Palestinian asylum seekers. This is the world director Noaz Deshe selected as the setting for his second feature film, which premiered at the 58th edition of the film festival on Monday night.
“To pass the time between interviews with the immigration office, Nasser and his friends film satirical sketches and make preparations for a zombie horror flick,” states a plot description shared by the festival, which has also put a film clip online. “Except that the reality of the camp could be taken for a horror scenario itself. The tension between its inhabitants gains momentum and every conflict removes one more brick from the wall which divides reality from dream—or, indeed, nightmare.”
The tale reveals the experiences and ambitions of the people in the camp, which the director first visited years ago, laced with his own thoughts. Noaz Deshe, also acclaimed for his work as a director of photography, stepped into the spotlight with his feature debut White Shadow, which is about a young Albino who is being hunted. Deshe won the Lion of the Future Award at the Venice Film Festival 2013. He penned the screenplay for Xoftex with Babak Jalali, the director of the film Fremont, which won KVIFF’s 2023 best director award.
Noaz Deshe interviewed about Greek refugee camp film
In speaking about his inspiration for writing Xoftex, Noaz Deshe told ScreenDaily:
“I was a contributor for Fairplanet.org and volunteering with CADUS, an NGO that provides medical aid in conflict zones. I documented their mission to rescue refugees from drowning off the coast of Libya.”
He added:
“The missions at sea shook me to the core. I sent some of the footage to a friend who introduced me to Amed Khan, a prolific humanitarian operator. He urged me to spend time in a refugee camp in Greece. The conditions of the camps in Greece, during that period, were plagued by rampant corruption and abuse. I asked my colleagues which camp they found most challenging. The unanimous response was Xoftex, situated in a former burnt-out toilet paper factory within a toxic wasteland.”
Noaz Deshe also spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about his time in the camp, saying:
“Eventually, I felt I had earned some kind of approval to approach people in camps. And I was invited by a person that built a camp in the north of Greece, an example camp that was safe. People there had rooms, which was exactly the opposite of everything that was happening elsewhere.”
He added:
“I went there to see what happens if there is proper planning and funding and used that as a launchpad with the people from that camp to go to other camps and see what the situation was there. And it was horrific. There were camps on Mount Olympus with people freezing to death in UNHCR tents in the winter that needed to be evacuated. There were camps in small villages where the local mayor let his 18-year-old daughter run the camp surrounded by the military in order to steal half of the money for food and pocket it. It was such chaos.”
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