Migrants bound for Germany walk through the streets of Budapest. Demotix/Beata Zawrzel. All rights reserved.The March is a remarkable film shown on TV channels across Europe all of 25 years ago, but set a decade or two hence in the early twenty-first century. In a world sharply divided by poverty and affected by climate change, it portrays a charismatic young teacher in a Sudanese refugee camp who galvanises his fellow inmates to walk to Europe.
Much of the film tracks the 'march' itself, by turns attacked, threatened and aided, but attracting the growing attention of the world’s media as the refugees make the dangerous trek across the desert to Morocco. Once there, they persuade dozens of boat-owners to ferry them in a veritable flock of small boats across to Spain, where they land en masse in a hastily evacuated resort surrounded by the newly created European Border Force.
A crucial subplot concerns the vain attempts by the despairing European Union commissioner for international development to persuade European leaders in Brussels to recognise what is happening. She fails, and the film ends up with her saying in the face of desolation: “Europe is not ready for you yet.”
