Hyphen

When Akin arrives in Ireland without his biological parents, he is overwhelmed by strange faces, customs, and institutions. At every turn he must admit that he is different, and as he embarks on a difficult journey to cultivate a new sense of identity in this strange country, he finds solace in something he shared with his parents. Something colourful, and comforting. 
Hyphen, as a short film, shines a light on the struggles many young Nigerian minors face when immigrating to Ireland. It shows us how these children interact with the Irish institutions they find themselves in the clutches of, and how strongly their sense of cultural identity can be affected as a result of migrating at such a young age, without their parents. As current displacement crises on our planet inflate the percentage of incoming migrants to Ireland, Irish institutions such as education and foster care will play a more important role than ever in how these migrants settle into our society. Akin’s journey is but one of many pathways a young migrant’s journey can take.

The short film was created as a collaborative project by the 21/22 Lord Puttnam Scholars at University College Cork.
The program offers eight students from different disciplines the opportunity to work with and learn from six seminars by digital education pioneer Lord David Puttnam. The experience from three film students was in this program combined with the experience and approaches of students of other research, science and art fields to create a project together that challenged ideas of producing, story-telling and mutual learning. Both film as well es non-film students found a platform in this project to discover new ways of understanding and challenging the medium.

Cork, Ireland 2022