The Substitutes
2021 · 5m · Documentary
More than a quarter of a million Syrian refugee children live in Istanbul, Turkey. Not all of them have access to education. Two sisters decide to bring school to the street.
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OBAIDA, a short film by Matthew Cassel, explores a Palestinian child’s experience of Israeli military arrest. Each year, some 700 Palestinian children undergo military detention in a system where ill-treatment is widespread and institutionalized. For these young detainees, few rights are guaranteed, even on paper. After release, the experience of detention continues to shape and mark former child prisoners’ path forward.
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