This Migrant Business from Ng'endo Mukii on Vimeo.
Kenyan animator Ng'endo Mukii's short film This Migrant Business was commissioned by the Danish Refugee Council and RMMS in Nairobi. It shows the systems that enable and exploit African migrants seeking better lives in the Middle East and Europe. The system creates a cyclic force that ensures that demand and supply will continue to feed into each other, indefinitely. This is a lucrative trade with vulnerable people as its currency.
When making the film, Mukii decided to shift the perspective of the viewer so that they form an intimate connection with the trafficker instead of the victim. Countless documentaries and stories that talk of the human smuggling crisis from the point of view of the victims has, in Mukii's opinion, created a numbness in the viewer. In This Migrant Business the viewer is forced to see things through the eyes of the smuggler – through moments of brutality, of gluttony and of corruption.
Mukii spoke at Design Indaba Conference 2015. You can watch her full talk online.
Below is an interview with Mukii on the making of This Migrant Business.
