TALK “The courage to live”

About the talk:

Stories have highs and lows and so do our own lives. In this talk we will explore the lives of those who have experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows, and ask them: what gave them the courage to continue living?

Yusuf Adam Suali was born in southern Somalia and fled to the Netherlands in 2009. After more than 15 years of living an undocumented life, Yusuf received a residence permit last year. He never gave up, but instead of that made a living for himself while in this difficult times. He joined the migrant collective We Are Here in Amsterdam to fight for refugee rights and contribute to a more progressive culture and quality of life in Amsterdam. He works at Rederij Lampedusa, where, as a captain and storyteller, he takes people on a tour of the Amsterdam canals. But he tells a slightly different story then expected on a canal tour. Yusuf will tell you there how migration contributes to the city, all ready for decades and about his own life story.

Vladlena Sandu was born in her father’s homeland of Crimea in 1982. After her parents divorced, she moved to her mother’s native city of Grozny in the Chechen Republic. She lived through six years of war as a child and teenager. In 1998 she emigrated to mainland Russia and received the status of an Internally Displaced Person. In 2011 she graduated from Rodchenko Art School. In 2016 she graduated from the VGIK, where she studied film directing on a BA course led by Alexei Uchitel. In 2019 she graduated from Boris Yukhananov’s Studio of Independent Direction. In March 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine she became a refugee for the second time. Today she lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

How do they have the courage to tell their stories? And to keep going? Sahand Sahebdivani will ask them about that and more during this talk with an extremely inspiring man.