The film is as much an exploration of often contradictory human attitudes towards migration as it is towards the experiences of the refugees themselves.
Island of the Hungry Ghosts
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Germany, United Kingdom, Australia · 2019
1h 38m
Director Gabrielle Brady
Starring Arthur Floret, Poh Lin Lee
Genre Documentary
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Christmas Island, Australia is home to one of the largest land migrations on earth: that of forty million crabs journeying from jungle to sea. But the jungle holds another secret: a high-security facility that indefinitely detains individuals seeking asylum. This story is a glimpse inside this mysterious island --- digging into its culture, its history, and its otherworldly nature.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The Playlist by Chris Barsanti
By refusing to illuminate the detainees’ stories or the humanitarian crisis—not widely reported enough for Brady to take the audience’s familiarity as a given—they are trapped inside, The Island of Hungry Ghosts relegates itself to being little more than a pretty but wispy curiosity that fails its beleaguered subjects.
The film is a haunting portrait of the island as a purgatorial realm between the poles of isolation and liberation.
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
Nonetheless, Island of the Hungry Ghosts casts an undeniably hypnotic spell. The documentary also serves as an important reminder that the United States is far from alone in mistreating its would-be immigrants.
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
Ethereal, intensely moving.
Los Angeles Times by Kimber Myers
It’s a humane, compassionate film, simultaneously full of beauty, sadness and struggle.
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