Freedom – Shewit’s Destiny / Freedom – Le destin de Shewit
trailer
country, year
Switzerland, 2026
genre
documentary
run time
88′
director
Anne-Frédérique Widmann
languages
French, Tigrigna
subtitles
Slovenian and English subtitles
synopsis
At just thirteen years old, Shewit flees the oppressive regime in Eritrea and sets off alone on a perilous journey to Europe. In 2015, after two years of traveling, she arrives in Switzerland—the country where she places all her hopes and dreams. Seven years later, without a residence permit and under the constant threat of deportation, Shewit is still fighting to become a free woman… Filmed over more than ten years, this documentary follows her struggle for emancipation.
“I met her at the Geneva refugee reception center during the migrant crisis of 2015. Thousands of unaccompanied minors came to Europe as refugees. They were the same age as my children, but they travelled through the dessert alone, without families, faced human traffickers and crossed the Mediterranean. A small number of these teenagers (only 15 percent) were girls and they were mostly from Eritrea. Because of their upbringing or fear they were all quite reserved. Shewit was different. She was traumatised by the three months she spent in Libya and she wanted to speak out. When I proposed we film her experience in Switzerland she agreed.
Initially, I envisioned a film about migration and exile. However, two years after her arrival, Shewit expressed a desire that few Eritrean girls dare to voice: to become independent, have a job, and get her own apartment. Through her contact with Switzerland, Shewit gradually distanced herself from the expectations of her community: to marry a young Eritrean man, have children, and devote herself to the family.
Her strength and determination deeply moved me. I wanted Shewit to be more than just a number in asylum seeker statistics. I wanted to show the reality of young girls in exile in Switzerland—through her voice and her perspective, and over a longer period of time. There has not been a long-term project done about this subject. When we started filming, Shewit was fifteen years old, when the film ends she is 25. The adventure lasted ten years and had many twists and turns. /…/
Shewit escaped her homeland, because she wanted to take control of her own life, follow her dream and make her own choices. She wanted to break the cycle which sentences women in her country to submission and – all too often – circumcision.
Eight years after arriving in Switzerland Shewit told me a secret. When she was only thirteen, she was abused in Eritrea and her community sided with her abuser. She was forced to leave her homeland to start a new life. Her story and her courage moved me profoundly. Especially because her host country, as happens in most European countries, did not offer her the necessary protection. Her application for residence was denied three times. Eight years she lived in fear of deportation and her future was uncertain.
In the film which carries her name, Shewit decided to speak out. ‘I am doing this for all other girls and women,’ she says.
I made this film for her; for her story to be heard by the Swiss public and the Swiss authorities. In the beginning I made a promise to Shewit: I will give her a voice, and with this I will give a voice to all refugee women fighting to finally take control of their lives. I wanted the film that took 10 years to make to show the reality of Shewit’s fight and tell her story the way it deserves to be told. The film shows that exile can be a path to emancipation.«
– Anne-Frédérique Widmann
