Welcome Europa

Each year, men from the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe make their ways to the wealthy countries of Western Europe. There the jobs and security they had hoped for are nowhere to be found. Instead, they lead furtive, desperate lives, sleeping in boxes, bathing in convenience store bathrooms and, often, selling their bodies for money. Director Ulmer has a cinematographer's eye and a masterful sense of mise-en-scene. Moving smoothly from vérité street scenes to individual portraits, we come to know these men, feel their dilemmas and frustrations, and in the end, wish them the best — though all facts make this seem unlikely. It's bleak truth, but as told by Ulmer, there is at least poetry and dignity in the bleakness. (DW) Sponsored by the European Union Center at the University of Missouri-Columbia.