PORTRAITS OF FREEDOM

JAMAL ALI | Berlin, Germany Musician, activist, public disruptor - those three come together organically in Jamal - or rather the authoritharian state of Azerbaidjan wouldn't let you be any other way. If you're free, you create. If you create, you have an opinion. If you have an opinion, the state will fight you for it. Arrested at a street protest for calling untouchable Azerbaidjani president Ilham Aliev the devil, after a week of beatings in prison, Jamal is given a choice - stay and not get out of prison next time you open your mouth, or leave the country. Now in Berlin, Jamal is struggling with this newfound freedom, searching for new ways to be who he is now that he is “free” and to fight against the injustices in his country. Made within the series Portraits of Freedom for Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

BELMA BAGDAT | Berlin, Germany Never having wanted to leave her country, Belma finds herself washed ashore in Berlin, escaping the long shadow of Erdogan's regime and it's iron grip on free speech. Program director of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation back home, she had to flee Istanbul with her family almost overnight. Belma tells us what it feels like to be uprooted against your will, starting afresh in a foreign country, and finding a cause worth fighting for.

SEBASTIAN BURDUJA | Bucharest, Romania After studying in the US, Sebastian has decided to quit his consulting career and move his family back to Romania to follow in his father’s footsteps as the leader of a small opposition party.

OLGA SHORINA | Bonn, Germany When you’re an opposition activist in Russia, the thought of leaving is always buzzing in your head. It is, however, also very theoretical – something from the time of the political exiles from the beginning of the twentieth century, - while the love for Russian trademark deadpun humour, intellectual acuteness, the Moskva Reka boardwalk, the tingy taste of redcurrant you know from your childhood are all very real. Few would emigrate if they we’re not fleeing to protect their life and family. Olga did it to allow his son a chance at the freedom of mind he wouldn’t have found in contemporary Russia – but can she be completely at peace with her decision?

STEFAN KOLEV | Zwickau, Germany Back as a penniless student in the 80s, Stefan’s dream as an aspiring philosopher of economy was to leave socialist Bulgaria for the free West. Now as professor in a small German town where Germany’s ultra-right party AfD is leading in the polls, he is faced with students who oppose the very heart of the ideals that drew him out of his home country in the first place.

GENOVEVA HRISTOVA + ANELIA KASSABOVA | Sofia, Bulgaria An story full of energy and spark about two strong and spirited small town girls making it big in the furniture industry, and how luck is not what happens to you but what you do.