Only the Ocean Between Us
**Seen at the 2021 Atlanta Film Festival.
There are plenty of ways in which the internet, and social media, is a cesspool of hate, bullying and anxiety. There’s also a strong possibility that you’ll connect with someone across the world that shares your interests, resulting in profound connection and friendship. While there was more than that with how the four women who told their stories, and co-directed, “Only the Ocean Between Us,” came to know one another, their bond is powerful, and life-changing.
Khaldiya and Marah are in the Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan, after them and their families fled from war-torn Syria. Karoli and Christy are Indigenous Shipibo-Konibo women from the Peruvian Amazon region. Karoli and Christy reside in Lima, and lived in a Shipibo-Konibo province of Cantagallo until it burned down. Between their love of filmmaking, their personal struggles as women, and as people driven from their homes due to tragedy, these four use social media and video diaries to bridge the physical distance between them, as well as the language barrier.
Even at a brief 85 minutes, this feels like a massive undertaking not just for the women telling their stories, but the producers and editors helping them do so. There were thousands of videos between the four women to weave together into a coherent narrative arc; thousands of social media exchanges to help bring context to the images; and painful emotional and personal tragedies to illuminate and respect. It’s not an easy job, but these women pull it off in a heroic, heartfelt way that helps us to understand lives outside of our own, and reflect on how lucky some of us have it.
I believe it’s Khaldiya that has one of the most profound moments in the film. At one point, she talks about how moving into the Refugee Camp was one of the best things that could have happened to her, and how guilty that can make one feel considering how many others struggle with such a profound change. It connected with me because, over the past year, while I have been furloughed from my work, the past 12-13 months have been extraordinarily beneficial for me in terms of what you’re reading right now, and following my passion in a way that, sometimes, work can get in the way of. I’m well aware of how privileged I am to be able to say that, because I know so many others have been suffering. Moments like these make these women’s extraordinary stories relatable, whether we’ve gone through the exact hardships they’ve gone through or not. They make the oceans and miles between us and our fellow humans feel less insurmountable.
