Year

2018

Result

Finalist

Category

Feature/Photographic Essay

Publications

SBS Online Documentaries

Chris Hopkins

“My Name is Yunus”

“My name is Yunus. I was born in 1990, I do not know my exact date of birth. I am Rohingya and a Sunni Muslim. I want to make a story for the world. I want to do this for my family and also for the Rohingya people, those people suffering in the Bangladesh refugee camps.”

Mohamad Yunus came to Australia in 2012 via Christmas Island and Darwin. He fled the persecution that has now seen his family and approximately 700,000 other Rohingyas cross the border into Bangladesh to escape human rights abuses by the Myanmar military.

Now in the relative safety of suburban Melbourne with a temporary visa, Yunus faces new challenges—isolation, poverty, unemployment, housing affordability, and constant fear for the safety of his family in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

Chris Hopkins captured moments from Yunus’ life for SBS’s innovative Instagram documentary She Called me Red. Hopkins writes in his entry statement, “what the future holds for Yunus is unseen, but his commitment to family, his persistence to stay strong and his dreams to become a leader within the broader Australian community, are a testament to those that are given a second chance.”

The judges said: “Chris has captured an amazing intimacy with this series. His use of available light shows a level of patience with his subject and a great technical ability with his camera.”

Chris Hopkins