Refugia – The Playground of the Forgotten

2025Video Art2 min 51 sec

Written, directed, and filmed by Marina Orlova

Refugia – The Playground of the Forgotten confronts the suffering of children whose lives have been shaped by war, displacement, hunger, and political violence.

Through symbolic imagery, the film brings together the forgotten children of Gaza, Congo, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Yemen—children whose innocence has been sacrificed to conflicts they did not create.

The playground becomes a metaphor for a childhood stolen. Objects associated with innocence carry the weight of violence, abandonment, and survival.

Rather than depicting war through armies or political leaders, the film turns its attention to those who bear its consequences but have no power to stop it.

Refugia is both a lament and an act of remembrance—a refusal to let the suffering of children disappear beneath the noise of politics, ideology, and indifference.

Every child deserves a playground. Not every child gets a childhood.