The Other Side of Hope

The Other Side of Hope lays bare the administrative obstacles encountered by migrants seeking asylum far from the conflicts that displace them. Khaled (Sherwan Haji) emerges from a pile of coal on a ship docked in Helsinki. A refugee from Syria, searching for the sister who is his only surviving relative, he is quickly absorbed into the bureaucracy of exile. It is only after exchanging blows with newly minted restaurateur Wikstrom (Sakari Kuosmanen), who finds Khaled sleeping next to the garbage bins of the Golden Pint restaurant, that his luck begins to change. New York Times critic A. O. Scott called this film “at once honest and artful, a touching and clear-sighted declaration of faith in people and in movies.”