The story of this film began in 2010. By that time I was shooting in the spanish exclave of Ceuta with people, who had managed the dangerous journey to come to Europe. One of them was Yves from Cameroun.

Two years later I received a message from him. He had been expulsed and sent back to Cameroun. Now he was back in Morroco and wanted to try it again to make into Spain. I set out to Morocco and met him in the forests around the fence of Ceuta. The two following years I spent with escorting Yves in Morroco. I plunged into the whirl of events, witnessed the brutality of the moroccan police, received phone calls from dinguees at sea, got to know people, who shouldn’t been alive anymore a few days later. Yvea was familiar with all these circumstance in Morocco, knew about his poor opportunities to gain a foothold in Europe. But nontheless, all these seemed to be better than to risk a new start back in Cameroon. Why?

To find it out, I travelled to Cameroun in 2014. There, I got to know Yves’ family. That they would become the mayor theme of my film, I realized much later, when I showed Yves their  pictures. Never before I had seen a such brightness in his eyes. He was deeply moved, and my concept oft he film experienced an unexpected twist. In the role of a messenger I commuted between the world of the hopeful family in Cameroun and Yves, who didn’t have the heard to tell them openly, that his mission in Europe didn’t seem to be fulfilled. Impossible to solve this dilemma, just as a returning with dignity.

Yves’ story is about leaving and staying, about falling and standing up,  about the sweetness of being loved and bitterness of unfulfilled expectations.

Melanie Gärtner