'Human Flow' trivia and fun facts

Numbers

The tema visited more than 40 refugee camps in 23 countries, and recorded more than 900 hours of film.

By chance

Ai Weiwei studied the refugee crisis for some time until he could manage to travel to the island of Lesbos, where he recorded the ships arriving from Turkey with his phone. He didn't have and planes to make a movie, but the images seemed so strong to him that the idea started to grow on him.

Empathy

The director has been persecuted by the Chinese government, and during his childhood, he saw how the Cultural Revolution turned his family into an exile to a village near the Gobi desert. In his words, these difficult events of his life make him understand very well what a refugee feels.