LAURA WADDINGTON United Kingdom
Academy Cinemas

In the days, if you wandered along the motorways and the wastelands, you could see the refugees everywhere: waiting on the roadside or headed to the port and the freight trains. They travelled in twos or threes or sometimes in groups of twenty or thirty.

At night, I'd walk along the roads with them. It took two or three hours to reach the spots on the channel tunnel fence, where they'd start to cut the wire. Then came the arrests and the police bus back to the camp. A few hours later, they'd re-emerge and the perverse game of cat and mouse would start again.

Most of the refugees were from Iraq and Afghanistan. They'd taken six or seven months to get to France, paying traffickers to smuggle them in trucks across Iran, Turkey and the Balkans. Many had nothing left but the clothes they were standing in. In their countries, they'd been teachers, university professors, medical students, and bricklayers.

Some men died in the tunnel, others had their arms or legs cut off by the moving trains. I remember, one boy who lost his leg was out on the road, the week he was released from the hospital, trying to escape again. The months passed in limbo. I couldn't believe we had just left them there, as if our backs were turned to them.

- Laura Waddington, 2002

Background

Born in London, England in 1970, Laura Waddington lives in Brussels and is currently researching a film in Amman. She has been making short films and videos since the early 1990s, the most recent of which are CARGO, 2001 and Border, 2004, both of which have garnered awards at their various festivals. In recent years, her work has been the subject of a number of retrospective screenings including Crossing Frontiers - Laura Waddington, 51st Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, 2005; Homage to Laura Waddington, Spazio Video, 41st Pesaro International Film Festival, 2005; Tapis, cousins et video: Laura Waddington, 33rd La Rochelle International Film Festival, 2005; and Vidéo et après: Laura Waddington, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2006. Waddington's films have been shown at numerous international film festivals including Locarno, Rotterdam, Montreal, Edinburgh and New York Video Festival. Her work has also been presented at various museums including in Cine y Casi Cine, Museo Nacional Centro de Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2005; and Women with Vision, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2005. A key text on her work is Bouchra Khalli, "The Pain of Seeing: The Videos of Laura Waddington", in the catalogue for 51st Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, 2005.

www.laurawaddington.com