‘The Best Immigrant’: ‘Squid Game’ Meets ICE in Timely Belgian Drama
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The dystopian drama, screening at Series Mania, imagines a near-future where migrants compete in a talent show for the right to stay in the country.
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Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment The creators of The Best Immigrant thought they were making science fiction. The Belgian series, which screens at international television festival Series Mania this week, imagines a near future where a far-right party wins power and passes a law forcing all non-native Belgians to return “to their country of origin.” Quickly adjusting to the new reality, a local TV channel launches a new competition show: The Best Immigrant , in which migrants compete to prove which is the “most worthy” of staying in the country. The winner gets residency. The losers are violently deported. Related Stories Movies Chaplin, Trumbo, Red Scare! Locarno Film Fest Sets "Hollywood Left and the Blacklist" Retrospective Business Finally, HBO Max Launches in the U.K. and Ireland Writers Raoul Groothuizen and Christina Poppe came up with the idea back in 2018, after noticing a sharp rise in racist rhetoric among the Flemish far-right. What would happen, they imagined, if a fascist regime took power in Belgium? How far would people, and the media, go to accommodate the new regime? “We were writing about people with foreign background getting arrested, put into camps,” says Groothuizen. “We imagined it was dystopian fantasy.” By the time they started shooting the show last year, The Best Immigrant started to resemble a news report. “In the first episode, we have a scene of police going into a school, dragging teachers into the street, something you see [in the U.S.] right now,” says series director Michael Abay. “Reality caught up with us.” Even the series most absurd premise — a competition in which immigrants compete for citizenship — feels ripped from the headlines. Last May, Duck Dynasty producer Rob Worsoff pitched a reality show he described as “ The Biggest Loser...
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