Love of Fate

A family stands on the edge of escape, until fate closes the door

Love of Fate examines one of the most dramatic and painful moments recorded during the migrant crisis, using extraordinary footage originally filmed for Markus Imhoof’s documentary Eldorado. In Lebanon, where 1.5 million Syrians live in a prolonged state of displacement, two selected families are preparing to leave the refugee camps after years of waiting. Chosen by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for resettlement in Germany, they follow each required step with the belief that a new life is finally within reach.

Among them is the Jarad family, a couple with nine children who have lived in Lebanon since fleeing Syria in 2012. Their story, along with that of another family of five, unfolds through direct observation rather than commentary. A UNHCR worker offers insight into the difficulty of choosing which refugees can depart, and a young woman named Nour recalls the circumstances that forced her own family to escape. For the most part, however, the film immerses the viewer in daily life inside the camps, portraying the mixture of anticipation, fear, and fragile optimism that surrounds the departure process.

The turning point arrives only hours before the Jarads are due to leave. A devastating event, captured with courage by cinematographers Peter Indergand and Jürg Lempen, abruptly cancels the family’s relocation. This moment, too powerful to fit the structure of Eldorado, is reconstructed by director and producer Pierre Alain Meier as a standalone film. His intention is to honour the Jarad family and to share a tragedy that reveals the human cost of arbitrary forces that shape migrant lives. Through these images, recorded with rare immediacy, the documentary reflects on the limits of control, the weight of circumstance, and the profound vulnerability faced by those who hope for a new beginning yet remain caught in a place without future.