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Hibatullah Shaalan, a senior at Nottingham High School in Syracuse, captured footage of flowers in her community and wrote a poem about how humans and flowers both need a healthy environment to grow.

Shaalan was one of the six Narratio fellows chosen to artistically depict what it’s like being an immigrant in the United States. She said the program taught her to “not to let society label us as ‘immigrants’ and that we are helpless and traumatized.”

Amhed Badr founded the Narratio organization to give other resettled refugee students in Syracuse the opportunity to share their experiences through different art mediums. This year, six fellows were selected to share their stories through autobiographical films. Ana Vîjdea, a filmmaker and master’s of fine arts candidate at Syracuse University, was selected as this year’s artist-in-residence.

Narratio fellows met around four times a week for five weeks. The filmmaking process began with the fellows reflecting on past experiences and “finding their voices.” Next, they observed Vîjdea’s short story pieces and interacted with other filmmakers. During in-person workshops, fellows learned how to use cameras and software editing programs.

“Everyone should understand how film is being made, especially during a time where we are exposed to so many videos online,” Vîjdea said.

Narratio also welcomed two guest speakers a week over Zoom. Guest speakers included multimedia journalists and filmmakers from Refinery29, Teen Vogue and Vox. The fellows discussed narrative, fiction and documentary films, as well as music videos and commercials.

Brice Nordquist, the fellowship co-director and an associate professor of writing studies, rhetoric and composition, said that lots of times, international students are placed into classes that “limit their artistic and creative expression.”

Rayan Mohamed and Felone Nganga participated in this year’s Narratio Fellowship, which focused on autobiographical filmmaking. Courtesy of Brice Nordquist

“There are not a lot of ways for students to present themselves in their full complexity and to share their stories on their own terms,” he said.

In educational settings and daily lives, refugee students are asked to tell stories about their lives. Often, people assume those stories revolve around tragedy and difficult circumstances even though their lives are more complex than certain events that occurred, Nordquist said.

“Many of the students wanted to take on complex, intellectual, and creative projects,” Nordquist said.

Each fellow shared their draft pieces with their program on Thursday and selected members of their communities. Final pieces will be shown through virtual screenings in the fall leading up to a cumulative outdoor presentation in the spring.

“People should anticipate intimate vignettes and vulnerable storytelling pieces that should be treated with a lot of respect,” said Edward Grattan, managing director of Narratio.

Some topics for the films include bullying at school and moving to the U.S., visually expressing the feelings of such major transitions. Many fellows incorporated other art forms into their films such as painting and dance. A portion of the pieces are multilingual.

“If you give people resources and a space to do work, where they can tell whatever story they want to tell, they can make brilliant and creative pieces,” Nordquist said.

Published on August 24, 2020 at 10:10 pm