AllMovie

Filmmaker Shai Carmeli-Pollak delivers a compassionate but unblinking look at an ongoing tragedy in this documentary. Since 2006, a steady stream of refugees from African nations torn apart by war -- primarily Sudan and Darfur -- have been making their way into Israel via Egypt in search of political asylum and new homes. An estimated eight thousand refugees have come to Israel, but the Israeli government has not given them a warm welcome, with some politicians branding them "infiltrators," and only five hundred have been granted legal permission to stay. In Refugees, Carmeli-Pollak introduces viewers to some of the African exiles (in particular Adam, a former teacher who slipped into Israel while his wife and children are detained in Egypt), as well as the social workers who struggle to feed, clothe and house the refugees and the politicians who want to keep them out of Israel. Refugees was an official selection at the 2009 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.