Directed by multiple National Emmy and Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning filmmakers, i589 summons community engagement in the global effort to end an epidemic of human rights abuses and achieve transnational justice.

The film focuses on four refugees who were tortured in countries they once called home.  Their stories begin in the U.S., where they reclaim their lives and gain the strength speak out against those who sought to silence them through acts of terror.

One of the most efficient means of control is to terrorize individuals and their communities into passivity, submission and silence. One way to exert that control is by torture—the ultimate form of denying human dignity. 

There are more than 400,000 survivors of foreign torture living in the U.S., which has the highest rates of political asylum in the world.  When passing us on the street or working alongside us, their voices remain largely unheard.

As multi-platform human rights project driven by a 90-minute documentary, i589 is a character-driven film that

follows the trajectories of four survivors who have suffered unimaginable cruelty.

Over the course of four years, the film travels with these extraordinary individuals—from Sierra Leone, Tibet, Jamaica and Chad—as they travel along the long road of recovery.

Serving as a unifying mechanism to organically connect the film’s main characters, SEEKING REFUGE provides rare and intimate access to care partners from the internationally renowned Bellevue Program for the Survivors of Torture, who guide our survivors through the healing process to find the strength to make the transition from ‘victims’ to victors.