Seven borders
“La morena,” a political refugee who cannot even say her name, along with her husband, decided to embark on one of the deadliest migration routes in the world, “The Balkan Route,” from their native Cuba, landing in Serbia and crossing the borders of Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, France, and Spain. The journey is guided by a human trafficker only through a smartphone. This route, where you are risking your life every day, is known as “The Game” or “The Balkan Game.”
In this game of survival, they face ectopic pregnancies, raging rivers, physically impregnable mountains, surveillance drones, hunters, the jungle police (border police), as well as extreme temperatures, hunger, stomach illnesses, exhaustion, and white supremacists constantly lurking. They had to travel 11,550 kilometers to enter the Schengen area and thus harbor the hope of those of us in other latitudes who seek access to a dignified life.
Currently, the barriers that a migrant woman of African descent faces are: rivers of indifference, bureaucratic mountains of paperwork, police hunters, extreme cold and hostility, lack of access to work, exhaustion, and discrimination by people who were lucky enough to be born on the right side of a border.
🎥 7 Borders
- Author: Abril Ángel
- Format: Video
- Place of production: Mexico
- Year: 2025
- Exhibition: Part of the collective exhibition PHoto España 2025
- Website: abrilangel.com/7fronteras
- Watch online: Vimeo
📽️ 7 Borders tells the journey of “La morena,” a Cuban political refugee who, together with her husband, is forced to cross the perilous “Balkan Route.” Guided only by a smuggler through a smartphone, they pass through Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, France, and Spain, facing extreme conditions, violence, and discrimination. The film is a testimony about the so-called “game” of survival in migration, and about the many physical and symbolic borders that continue to constrain the life of an Afro-descendant migrant woman seeking dignity.
