Intimacy and Empathy in Midnight Traveler Isabella Escalona College

In Hassan Fazili’s Midnight Traveler, the global migration crisis comes into intimate view. Hassan Fazili is an Afghan filmmaker, husband, and father of two daughters, and was previously the co-operator of a small cafe where reform-minded individuals could congregate in defiance of the Taliban’s religious policies. However, in 2015, after Fazili’s documentary film Peace in Afghanistan aired on Afghan national television, the Taliban assassinated the film’s main subject and placed a bounty on Fazili’s death. Midnight Traveler begins 14 months later, as Fazili and his family join a wave of refugees fleeing from Afghanistan to the Turkish border. Using three mobile phones, the family chronicles hundreds of miles traveled in exile over three perilous years through Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Serbia, trekking through perilous environments, camping out in the freezing wilderness, and cramming into the trunks of vehicles. As they endure smugglers, long lines, and countless refugee camps, the audience bears witness to not only the danger and desperation of refugees in search of a home but also the tenderness and vulnerability of an ordinary family. Capturing the life of a refugee from the most ground-level perspective, Midnight...