Pacific Solution, a documentary by award winning director James Frankham, has been selected as one of 11 documentaries in competition at the EIDF international documentary film festival in Seoul. The film will be competing across four categories, Grand Prix, Spirit Award, Special Award and Audience Award. The theme for the festival this year is “Prospering Asia, Reconciliation and Coexistence”. Pacific Solution also won an “Honourable Mention” at the inaugural DOCNZ Festival in September of 2005.

Pacific Solution is a remarkable story which follows the fate of the Afghani children who went missing in their bid to escape the Taliban in 2001. On the day the World Trade Centre crumbled, the lives of 438 Afghan refugees were hanging in the balance off the coast of Australia. The refugees who were rescued by the Norwegian container ship, the MV Tampa, became the centre of a media maelstrom as their world changed forever.

The film has attracted controversy as the subjects are deeply critical of the actions of the Howard government. The Australian response, to deny entry to the boat carrying the Afghan refugees, resulted in an international outcry. The Tampa refugees, many of whom were young children, were detained on the island of Nauru, tagged by many as the "Guantanamo Bay" of the Pacific in gross contravention of basic human rights.

Filmed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Nauru and New Zealand, Pacific Solution tells the story of their experience, the new home they found in New Zealand, and follows the epic quest of their families to join them. Through the prism of their journey, this intimate documentary examines the political context of the refugee crisis facing our world.

Director James Frankham is one of New Zealand’s brightest emerging young talents whose recent work including Tanim ( www.tanim.cc ) , also represented by Smiley, drew high praise from the jury members of DOCNZ last year impressed with Frankham’s keen eye and strong directorial flair. Frankham who is no stranger to adventure spent 4 months in the remote jungle – clad mountains of PNG in 2002 documenting the change in the lives of the Apulin tribe as they grappled with western style democracy and elections. In Pacific Solution, Frankham faced an equally challenging task as he filmed in 5 different countries, in his quest to tell the story of the asylum seekers who were stranded on the MV Tampa. Frankham reveals some of the difficulties he faced during the process:

“Pacific Solution was a challenging and inspiring film to make that drew on an array of field skills. I was required to work alone and follow the uncertain fortunes of refugees in unstable countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Nauru. I relied heavily on the use of small digital camera formats, recorded my own sound and directed my own shots. But I also depended upon on the skills and intuition of young field translators, Reza and Ilyas, who made sense of the language, and often the culture as well.

However this economy of production had unforseen pay-offs; I was able to capture intimate family moments and travel with the refugee's inconspicuously, sequences that I’m sure would not have been possible with larger equipment or bigger crews.

It put me in touch with people who had experienced the kind of treatment that no human should have to tolerate. I had the privilege of travelling with families across the fulcrum of change in their lives; from persecution, to a new life with new opportunities. But for many this transition was bitter-sweet. The promises of life in the modern world were confusing, sometimes fell short of their expectations and were consistently riddled with difficulties. Pacific Solution is their story, not mine. It is a tale of struggle against little-understood powers, and the rickety bridge constructed between disparate cultures by the most courageous people I am ever likely to meet.”

Pacific Solution has received strong interest worldwide as the media fascination for Afghanistan has shown no signs of waning. As governments and the public continue to examine their own responses to countries in crisis, Pacific Solution offers a poignant reminder of the enormous and life changing impact that is felt by individual lives and families as a direct result of decisions made by those in power. The film has also been of great interest to the Muslim community, particularly in light of the September 11 attacks as it reveals the fallacy of the various Muslim stereotypes reinforced in mainstream media. The Howard government had been criticised at the time for fuelling an anti terrorist hysteria in its decision to reject the entry of the asylum seekers. The film which intimately followed the Tampa children and their families who had been left behind revealed a completely different story. The asylum seekers were mainly comprised of the elderly as well as young children and women.