Toronto: Even two decades working on migration issues did not prepare director Sine Plambech for the gut-wrenching scenes of human misery she encountered in her new documentary “Rescue.” The film traces the work of men and women who patrol the Mediterranean Sea helping the often-desperate people they find there who are fleeing economic and political chaos and trying to make their way to Europe. In one scene, cameras capture an operation by the NGO Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) as they try to help a group in a stricken little boat. What unfolds is a tense sequence that ends with the separation of a Yemeni family: a man is taken aboard by the activists while weeping and screaming for his family, who had been abducted by armed men just minutes earlier, right in front of the cameras. The story deeply affected Danish filmmaker Plambech, whose documentary premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and has its European premiere Friday at the Zurich Film Festival. “It’s been the most emotionally challenging and ethically challenging film I have ever made because (I was) witnessing someone (being) captured, (while I was) there with the husband all the time,” Plambech told AFP. The production follows Hani, a Yemeni man, over the course of several months as he eventually reaches the Italian coast where he must endure an agonizing wait, unsure if he will ever see his family again. Eventually, he receives news from his wife, Roro, whose cell phone footage features in the film detailing the physical, psychological, and sexual violence she and her children suffered at the hands of their captors. “From the start she was like: ‘I want to tell my story, and if you can help me get justice, I want that too’,” said Plambech, an anthropologist by training. ‘Every day’ Plambech and her team undertook several expeditions alongside the rescuers in an effort to document the migration situation in the Mediterranean, a sea that tens of thousands of people cross every year. Hundreds of them die along the way. “We were filming under very challenging circumstances, the weather and the waves, and you know the whole nature around being at sea,” she said. But “what we are documenting in our film is something that happens every day,” she said. Plembach said she was concerned by the shifting tides of public opinion and politics in Europe, where a growing anti-migrant movement is making its presence felt in mainstream discourse. Where people fleeing the horrors of sub-Saharan Africa or the repression of Central Asia might have been welcomed in the continent a decade ago, they are now seen as a threat to keep out. “We have a very right-wing change throughout the world on this (issue)... but that’s what makes it even more important to talk about it.” Getting audiences to engage with the issue is not easy, says Plembach. “Can we tell the political story about the EU and other countries (and) the dealings they have across the Mediterranean, but... toned in a way that it can reach audiences that might not watch a film about migration?” she asks. Her solution is to focus on the personal tragedy and hope of Hani and Roro. As well as having a bigger political message “It’s also a love story. It’s also a family story. It’s about a father who’s longing for his children and a mother who’s willing to do whatever it takes.”