The Next Boat

‘The Next Boat’ is a short film-documentary written and directed by Luke Naylor-Perrott. The film follows ‘M’, a resident of the Vial Refugee Camp in Greece. He was given a safe space to build his boat and learn English by CESRT, a volunteer-led charity providing aid to refugees.

Director's Note: In this film, I really I wanted to capture the atmosphere of timelessness that I felt whilst filming 'M'. A refugee's life is one of motion and precarity: journeys fill the memories of yesterday and the fears of tomorrow. And yet, for the hour or so that I spent with 'M', time and space centred on his boat. I also wanted to explore themes of voyeurism and the place of the camera in covering the migrant crisis, and the resistance to picture refugees as anything other than victims. 'M' was so much more than that, and so for four minutes, I wanted to spend time with him, building his boat.

Composer's Note: Musically, the main feeling I wanted to convey was uncertainty, something that feels open and fluid and capable of holding multiple meanings. I wanted to explore texture as something amorphous and shifting: light and aerated at one moment and dense and foreboding the next, or something seemingly static but also in inexorable motion. Given the very charged and emotional rhetoric surrounding refugees often in the media, it felt important to me not to prescribe the emotional tone too heavily, but instead offer an array or spectrum of emotional possibilities.

‘The Next Boat’ was released in July, 2020. It was nominated for the AltFF Alternative Film Festival 2020 semi-finalist and the Kosice International Monthly Film Festival 2020 official selection.