Cate Blanchett says Displacement Film Fund will challenge toxic asylum narrative

Cate Blanchett has used an interview ahead of the London Film Festival to promote her Displacement Film Fund and to challenge what she calls a toxic narrative around refugees and asylum seekers. The double Oscar-winning actor will appear at the festival to introduce the first short films backed by the fund, which she created for filmmakers who have been forcibly displaced.

One of the selected films is Allies in Exile by Hassan Khassan, made with co-director Fadi Al-Halabi. It tells the story of Syrian journalists who documented war and revolution and were then forced from home. Blanchett said she had spent time with refugees through her work with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. She described their stories as heartbreaking, horrific and confronting, but also full of humour and resilience. She said she was bewildered that one in 67 people around the world are displaced, yet these stories are not more visible in the mainstream.

Asked why, Blanchett rejected the idea that audiences lack appetite. She said there is reticence because displacement is politicised so quickly, and that outlets, streamers and distributors are nervous and underestimate audience demand. She described the problem as structural. The fund, she said, is partly about re-humanising displaced people, making connections and moving beyond stereotypes. She argued that people in countries free of conflict are being asked to be displaced from their own humanity.

Khassan described how he was a law student when the Syrian revolution began and found his voice. He said the Assad regime chose to fight and start a war against the people, and he became a citizen journalist. Filming became a daily act of trying to tell the world what was happening, even as he saw bloodshed and damage. He left Aleppo with only his footage. He later came to the UK, found the border shut and became stuck in London making an asylum claim while his family remained in Turkey. He described the separation and uncertainty as traumatic, including a long wait in a hotel for a Home Office appointment.

The interview also covered shifting public attitudes. Blanchett said that ten years ago, at the height of the Syrian war, Germany opened its borders and there was talk of welcoming refugees. She pointed to the more recent Homes for Ukraine scheme in the UK. She said headlines and the media do a disservice to the average person and that the UK has a long, welcoming history of taking in displaced people. She acknowledged that people are taking to the streets over the issue, but said good news stories do not make it into coverage.

Blanchett said the stereotype she wants to challenge is that asylum seekers are economic migrants. She said the term for refugee had become economic migrant, and referred to claims about weapons of mass destruction moving from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein. She noted that 39 per cent of refugees worldwide are children. When the interviewer observed that not many children come to the UK, Blanchett cited the photograph of a dead boy on a beach and child-sized life vests washing up on the shores of Italy and Greece. She said hearts opened and were then asked to close again.

She also spoke about her native Australia, saying it was built on multiculturalism and generations of asylum seekers and refugees. She said that narrative had calcified, to the country's detriment. Asked whether she understood public fear and anger, Blanchett said people are living through rapid change and existential threats, including artificial intelligence, and that this creates a destabilising, fear-based environment. She said people are being asked to lead into their worst selves rather than their best selves. She added that everyone risks being displaced by conflict or climate change, and that people who have survived trauma have resilience and much to offer their countries of acceptance. Khassan was described as a lawyer, father, filmmaker and journalist.