'Island of the Hungry Ghosts': trauma and narrative therapy

Screening Ideas programmer, Dr Cristóbal Escobar, speaks with Poh Lin Lee, one of the protagonists from the documentary Island of the Hungry Ghosts.

About Island of the Hungry Ghosts

Located off the coast of Indonesia, the Australian territory of Christmas Island is inhabited by migratory crabs travelling in their millions from the jungle towards the ocean, in a movement that has been provoked by the full moon for hundreds of thousands of years. Poh Lin Lee is a “trauma therapist” who lives with her family in this seemingly idyllic paradise. Every day, she talks with the asylum seekers held indefinitely in a high-security detention center hidden in the island’s core, attempting to support them in a situation that is as unbearable as its outcome is uncertain.

Cristóbal Escobar (moderator) writes about film and aesthetic philosophy. He is a teaching associate at the University of Melbourne where he has recently submitted his doctoral thesis on The Intensive-image: Rethinking Deleuze´s Film-Philosophy. His work has appeared in academic journals, film magazines and newspapers, and he is currently drafting the publication of his first monograph. Since 2019, Cristóbal has served as head of international programming for the Santiago International Documentary Film Festival (FIDOCS).