Kitten or Refugee?

Tina Farifteh

The Netherlands 2023, 28:33 minutes

Why are we empathetic towards some and indifferent, or cruel towards others? Why do we pick up one refugee in our own car and let another freeze to death on the borders of Europe? What mechanisms lie behind this? Who is on top of our empathy ladder when making life-or-death decisions? Are empathy and xenophobia different sides of the same coin?

Based on interviews with scientists and experienced experts, experiments and image analysis, Tina Farifteh looked for the answers.

How do we view ‘the other’? How does their pain affect us? How do we decide who to help? Is it our biology, evolution or brain that determines how we respond? And what is the influence of the continuous stream of images that inundate us every day? Images that constantly compete for our attention. Images that manipulate us. Should we let empathy be our only guideline in deciding who to help?

Kitten or Refugee? is a co-production of Prospektor and VPRO.

The Film is spoken in Dutch with English subtitles.

Tina Farifteh

― Artist

Tina Farifteh is an Iranian-Dutch photographer and filmmaker based in the Netherlands. She obtained master’s Degrees from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and a Bachelor’s Degree from the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, where she graduated with honours. Her work reflects on the ways in which man-made power structures such as nation states and corporations impact the lives of ordinary people. Central to her work is the role of images and how these influence our thoughts, emotions, and behaviour. In her audiovisual installation The Flood (2021-ongoing) she dissects right-wing, populist rhetoric and how refugees are dehumanized and framed as a ‘natural disaster’. In her short documentary Kitten or Refugee? (Prospektor / VPRO, 2023), she investigates our human capacity for empathy, and its limits. In tandem with these projects, she is developing Tina in Sexbierum, a transmedia project on displacement, detachment, assimilation, loss and longing for a home. The Flood won several prizes among others ‘The Royal Academy Bachelor Award’ and ‘Meestervertellers 2023’. Kitten or Refugee? was selected for the Debut Competition of the Dutch Film Festival, and won the 1st prize for Storytelling at De Zilveren Camera. Farifteh is a member of Futures, a European photography platform that brings together talents and expertise and was one of the selected artists for NFF Fellowship 2023.

Event