Every year thousands of people try to reach Europe by land, journeying on foot across the mountains, rivers, woods and fields of the Balkan route connecting Asia to Europe. Those with some money set aside rely on human smugglers to cross from one country to the next. Everyone else faces ‘the Game’: attempting repeatingly to cross borders by walking in the forests, hiding under truck trailers or freight trains to avoid being arrested by border police and escape violence and the subsequent pushback that would return them to square one.
Go, friend, go spanns across the ports of Patras in Greece, the forests by the border town of Šid in Serbia, the abandoned factories in the bosnian Una Sana canton, and the arrival point in Trieste's public squares, all peripheral hotspots of migrant lives in transit. In piecing together individual stories on different locations of the route, the film's narration brings together footage and animation to convey the unity of intention shared by people on the move in reaching a new life in Europe.
The film is an experiential journey across one of the most unknown migrant routes, made to make the viewer feel the contrasting experience of resilience and resourceful hope that migrants find even when facing utmost destitution and the violence of the European border regime.