From Director Richard Parry (Shooting Robert King, BASE) and Exec-Produced by Coldplay’s manager Dave Holmes and creative director Phil Harvey – comes 21 MILES, a feature documentary. This is the story of a father’s incredible journey to reach his son in England. Kais, a 30-year old Tunisian arrives in the French shantytown with nothing more than the shirt on his back. 21 miles of sea lie between him and his 8-year old boy Marcel.
Coldplay’s Dave Holmes and Phil Harvey said: “21 MILES is a moving and important film. Through the heart-breaking story of a Tunisian man trying to reach his son in the UK, the documentary shines a light on the everyday struggles of migrants and refugees desperate to escape impossible situations.”
Along with the involvement and support from Coldplay’s management team, the film features the band’s music, including ‘Daddy’ – a track from their latest album ‘Everyday Life’. The film was Co-produced and Music Supervised by Lol Hammond (Football Factory, Bronson, Sweeny, Monsters).
The story follows Kais, stuck in the Calais Jungle for sixteen months, through floods, fires and evictions, right up to the camp’s ultimate destruction. It charts his mounting struggles with human traffickers, violent gangs, poverty and deprivation. Over the months Kais finds his feet as he learns to work with volunteers to improve the desperate conditions in the camp. The film culminates in the final brutal eviction of the Jungle’s ten thousand migrants.
Director Richard: “This was a real labour of love for me. I’d spent years filming wars on far flung shores, from Iraq to Afghanistan and the former-Yugoslavia and I felt driven to tell the story of these migrants, a mere 21 miles away from my own shore. Many of the people in the Jungle had fled conflicts I’d filmed, so it was heart-breaking for me to witness both ends of their story.”
Richard and his team spent nearly two years documenting migrant stories, sinking all their spare time and savings into the film. During the eviction the French Police locked up the team for possessing a gas mask (many journalists used these for their own as protection). The team were imprisoned for 24 hours and then deported.