Open Arms founder: “Afghan refugees already in 2005, but they weren’t in fashion”

“The Afghan refugees? There were already in 2005. There were thousands of Afghan refugees who feared the retaliation of the Taliban, and tried to escape and go to safer shores, but in that case they were sent home because they did not consider themselves really threatened. At the time, Syrians were more fashionable. ” To tell the Adnkronos is Oscar Camps, the founder of Open Arms, in Rome on the occasion of the presentation of the film that bears the name of the NGO he founded and which tells the story of the birth of Open Arms. “If we continue to manipulate information, we will never go forward – the activist sinks – Refugees have always been there, and there will always be these migratory flows as long as there are wars, status differences and power struggles”. Camps is a guest at the Rome Festival to present the film ‘Open Arms’, in Official Selection, which tells, directed by Spanish director Marcel Barrena, the story of the founder of Open Arms, an organization that was the first to protect the people trying to reach Europe. “A film that tells the story of the birth of Open Arms and also part of my life? Benvenga, if this can help, it can tip the balance towards good and raise awareness on the problem of migrants,” says the activist. “The important thing for me – Camps says – was to know with what ethics they would tell it, if there would be delicacy and respect for the human being. Compared to the story of my story but also to the small moment in the life of the refugees. And there was this respect. The refugees were able to work as extras and tell something about them ”. The founder of the NGO is shy: “It is not me, but the story. My life is normal, I have 4 children, and three are annoyed because they do not appear in the film while one is they do”, he jokes. “We did a preparatory work before, and we turned to a psychiatrist because many of them had lost their loved ones, were in trauma “, the director of the film Barrena explains to Adnkronos. Who tells a touching anecdote: “During the process, there was a little girl in the water who had to simulate an emergency situation. Seeing her crying bitterly, and remembering what the psychiatrist had told me, that is to be careful, I immediately ordered that stop recording. I jumped into the water, walked over to her and tried to calm her down, asking her if everything was okay. She looked at me, and asked me: Am I not doing it right? to the maximum and he was very keen to make people understand what they had lived “.