GEMMA HAS A PLAN
61 minutes, 2021
Director : Arantza DIEZ (Spain)
Production : Televisió de Catalunya-CCMA SA (Spain)
Gemma, a Catalan nurse in her sixties, decided to disobey the law. Illegally she helps asylum seekers stranded in Greece and Serbia cross the borders along the Balkan route so they can get to the countries where they want to settle. She drives them in her car. They use Spanish identity cards lent by friends. With their help Gemma has managed to build an international network of activists. They support her in what she’s doing. She succeeds every time – until bad luck turns everything upside down: she finds herself in a Serbian prison, accused of human trafficking. Her lawyer has to prove that smuggling people in the name of solidarity can’t be considered a crime.
Arantza DIEZ is a documentary film-maker born in Barcelona in 1975. She has worked as a journalist and independent film-maker for 15 years. She began following the refugee crisis in 2015 on the Greek island of Lesbos, where she filmed a Spanish rescue team who had settled on the island helping refugees get ashore safely. Since then she has mainly focused on depicting migration issues across Europe, either filming on board a rescue ship off the Libyan coast or following people determined to challenge the fortress that Europe has become. Gemma has a plan took three and a half years to film, from 2016 to 2020. It explores Europeans’ rights to disobey decisions and rules which go against ethical and human values.