“A Refugee’s Guide to Rome” – An Immigrants Perilous Journey to Freedom: A documentary followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Ted Efremoff

Harold C. Smith Presentation Room, Stitzer Welcome Center at Judd Gymnasia

A Refugee’s Guide to Rome tells the true story of Joseph, an outspoken political activist for LGBT rights, who fled from his family’s home in his native Sierra Leone because his life was in danger. This documentary by director Ted Efremoff details Joseph’s harrowing encounters with the refugee smuggling enterprises of Africa and the perils of rafting across the Mediterranean—all in search of political asylum in Rome. His passage is punctuated by danger and guided by faith.

Joseph’s story is juxtaposed with the ancient journey of Aeneas, who as a refugee from the Trojan War, survived his own perilous, otherworldly path to freedom when he became the mythological founder of Rome in Virgil’s Aeneid. The film exposes the heartbreaking choices refugees often make through crisis, migration, and integration.

Efremoff is an associate professor of art at Central Connecticut State University. As an artist and an educator, his work explores personal and cultural constraints imposed by prevailing power structures. Efremoff’s use of art as a form of storytelling allows for traveling through space and time to challenge often-accepted social constructs and promote progressive change. As a 16-year-old immigrant from the Soviet Union in 1980, Efremoff spent a month wandering the streets of Rome during his own journey to freedom which led to his fascination with the city and dream of creating a film about Rome as an immigration destination.

This event is free and open to the Springfield College community and the public. It is co-sponsored by the Honors Program and the Social Work and Social Justice Club .

For more information, please email Assistant Professor Andrew Schoolnik at aschoolnik@springfield.edu.