Jag är Dublin

Daoud plunges his palms into the basin; his face contorts in pain as the acid eats away at his fingertips. This harsh scene from a Swedish short live action film is even more forceful when we know that the lead actor literally experienced this in the real world. The role of Daoud, a migrant seeking asylum in Scandinavia, is played by Ahmed, a young Somali who has been living in hiding for six years. His fingerprints would link him to Italy, the first EU country where he set foot and thus, according to the Dublin Regulation, the only country where he can apply for asylum. Ahmed's story illustrates the similar fate of hundreds of thousands of other people trapped by the problematic regulation. More importantly, it documents the mental stress that eats away like acid at traumatised people living in uncertainty. (One World)