Photo: Cate meeting with refugee students at Gorom Refugee Camp © UNHCR/Hector Perez
By Raye Mocioiu
Cate Blanchett is many things: an Academy Award-winning actress, producer, mother, and, for the past decade, a UNHCR Global Goodwill Ambassador. It’s in the latter that she’s taken on what she sees as one of her most important roles: a witness. Through her work with the UN refugee agency, Blanchett has spent years meeting families displaced by conflict and persecution, listening to stories of unimaginable loss alongside extraordinary resilience. The responsibility that comes with this role means that she cannot look away—but she doesn’t want to, either. Instead, she wants to urge others to watch and listen as well.
“When we talk about ‘refugees,’ we are talking about people,” she said. “Mothers, fathers, children, each with their own story and potential. Those stories deserve to be told truthfully, so people understand not just the suffering refugees have endured, but the impossible choices that force them to leave home.”
For Blanchett, bearing witness is only the beginning. The greater responsibility is making sure those stories continue to be heard. It’s the driving force behind the Displacement Film Fund (DFF), which helps displaced filmmakers bring their own stories to the screen, in their own voices.
We sat down with Blanchett to look back on a decade of impact with the UNHCR.
Global Heroes (GH): This year marks a decade for you as a Global Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR. Looking back over those years, which moments have stuck with you?
CB: It has been one of the great privileges of my life. My experience as a Global Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has changed my perspective on the world. I’ve had the honor of meeting with refugees around the world—in Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Niger, and South Sudan. I have met families who’ve lost everything, individuals who’ve endured unimaginable hardship, and yet still they hold onto hope. I’ve seen the worst of what people can go through, but also the best of what people can give. So many individuals have inspired me. Izdehar, a Syrian refugee I met in Jordan, fled Syria in 2013. As the mother of the family, she took a job and became the primary breadwinner after her husband was left unable to work due to a disability. Then there’s Alekiir, a passionate young student from Sudan. She was in the middle of her studies when conflict erupted, forcing her to drop everything and flee in search of safety to build her life again. I saw early on that there is an enormous gap between those who are heard and those who are not. Today, ensuring that refugees’ stories are heard remains essential, so that their experiences cannot easily be overlooked or denied.
GH: You’ve said that meeting refugees and hearing their stories has been the highlight of your work with UNHCR. Is there one person across your travels that continues to stay with you years later?
It is very hard to pick out one story or individual. As a mother, I can sometimes feel like I’m seeing my own children in every refugee child I meet. I see myself in the parents I have spoken to. In my early days working with UNHCR, in 2017, I went to Bangladesh and had the opportunity to see the massive humanitarian situation unfolding there. That trip remains with me years later. Nothing could have prepared me for the extent and depth of the suffering. There was an 18-year-old woman, one of the 720,000 stateless Rohingya refugees who had just fled unthinkable violence and abuse in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. She had run from her burning village with her infant son, Yousuf. Her husband was forcibly taken from their village and disappeared whilst her home was set on fire. She had to flee with her baby. She saw her uncle killed by men with knives, and she simply ran, hiding in a forest, surviving off plants and trees. She ended up in Bangladesh, where another refugee family took her and her baby into a cramped shelter. As I sat with her, a small child was playing behind me, and I noticed some terrible scars on his leg. His family told me that he had been caught in the flames when their home had been torched. They pulled him free, but the scars will always remain—both the physical and the psychological.
I wish such stories were atypical, but I have heard so many stories that tell of the worst of humanity. Of torture, of women brutally violated, of people witnessing loved ones killed before their eyes. I have listened to the devastating memories of children who have seen their grandparents set alight. Children who have lost parents during war. These stories remind me that we have an obligation to bear witness. I recognize my own privilege of safety and stability. I don’t take it for granted. Nobody should.
GH: Many conversations about refugees focus on statistics, yet you’ve consistently brought the discussion back to individual human stories.
Nobody can visualize 41.6 million refugees. Such vast numbers overwhelm. Statistics act like an invisibility cloak that hides human stories and prevents empathy. Real stories about real people who have been displaced give humanity to those statistics and help people to see that refugees are human beings with hopes and ambitions, just like anyone else. Helping to shift perceptions through storytelling can be incredibly powerful, sparking empathy and understanding. Working with the UNHCR to find ways to bring attention to the plight of refugees, the hope is that people may listen, reflect, and then do what they can. Storytelling drives action. I have seen it myself; sharing stories inspires people across all walks of life.
I’m reminded of when I traveled to Azraq in Jordan in 2016 and met a young schoolteacher. He and his wife were living in a UNHCR tent, having fled Syria with their newborn daughter. This new father had set up a small courtyard in which he planted a seedling tree to grow and provide shade for his daughter in the future. It moved me greatly—this is a quintessential image of hope: a father tirelessly hopeful for his tiny daughter to grow up and play in the shade. He was taking every waking moment to give support to his daughter as well as others—giving math lessons to older girls in the camp, conscious of the next generation not losing access to education. There is no way anyone would see his personal resilience and commitment through hearing just statistics.
People need to hear individual stories. And that is one of the factors that led to setting up the Displacement Film Fund (DFF), with the Hubert Bals Fund of the International Film Festival Rotterdam as the management partner and UNHCR as a strategic partner.
GH: The DFF has two key aims: to support displaced filmmakers to tell stories and to bring those stories to a far wider audience. What inspired you to create it, and why did you feel the film industry needed something like this now?
The idea for the DFF was born at UNHCR’s Global Refugee Forum in Geneva in 2023, where together with fellow UNHCR supporters including Ke Huy Quan, we came up with the idea of a specific fund that would champion the work of displaced filmmakers, or filmmakers with a proven record in creating authentic storytelling about the experiences of displaced people. It has always surprised me that despite displacement being one of the biggest stories of our times, so few stories are told in cinema from that unique perspective. In a relatively short time, film industry experts, philanthropists, people with a personal connection to displacement, and great partners—the Amahoro Coalition, Droom en Daad, MasterMind, the SP Lohia Foundation, the Tamer Family Foundation, UNHCR, UNIQLO—have helped bring the DFF vision to life. The pace at which it has all come together is a powerful reminder that there is a real desire to engage with refugee stories.
GH: Rather than simply telling refugee stories, why was it important that these voices lead the conversation themselves?
The DFF filmmakers have free rein to make whatever type of short film they like. While many will express themselves through fiction, some may choose to tell their own stories. Take Allies in Exile, by Syrian directors Hasan Kattan and Fadi Al-Halabi. This astonishing piece gives audiences an intimate view into the lives of two friends navigating the UK asylum system after fleeing unimaginable loss in Syria and then Turkey. Audiences don’t see “refugees” in the abstract, but instead become totally invested in the journey of these two young men dealing with trauma with humor, frustration, resilience, and hope. By turning the camera on their own lives over months and years, they offer viewers opportunities to understand what life is like for so many. It’s a great example of why refugees must lead the conversation: their voices challenge stereotypes, restore humanity, and have the power to shift how people see displacement.
GH: What have you learned from the filmmakers you’ve worked with through the DFF that perhaps surprised even you?
You know, when people are forced to leave their homes, they leave everything behind. They lose the most basic things like their homes, education, their jobs. I have learned that when artists and filmmakers find themselves forced to flee, many lose the means to create and work at a time when it is more vital than ever. But they absolutely do not lose the drive to tell stories. We can see from the DFF films that somehow people are driven, even in the most inhumane, impossible situations, to tell stories. This level of human resilience and spirit in the darkest of times never fails to surprise me across my UNHCR work and with the Film Fund.
GH: The first films supported by the fund have already received incredible acclaim. What has it been like watching audiences connect with these stories?
It has been so inspiring to see audiences connect with the first cohort of films by Maryna Er Gorbach, Mo Harawe, Hasan Kattan, Mohammad Rasoulof, and Shahrbanoo Sadat. Each brings a distinct, deeply personal voice, yet their stories speak to universal experiences—courage, friendship, love, frustration, and loss. In a world shaped by division and misinformation, film can be a powerful antidote: opening a window onto realities people may not know and inviting them to bear witness too.
GH: During your address to the European Parliament, you spoke about compassion, shared humanity, and protecting the right to seek asylum. Are you hopeful that global attitudes toward refugees can still change?
We have to hope. I am hopeful in this work because I have seen attitudes change, especially when people are given the opportunity to hear refugees speak for themselves. When I met Nada, a young Sudanese refugee in Egypt, she shared with me some letters written by displaced people to their homeland. These were letters full of longing for familiar streets, neighbors, and the people they had left behind. I find that these personal words and stories cut through and change attitudes: we learn that refugees are not refugees by choice; refugees do not want to live in exile; they want to go home.
But hope requires action. I’m always struck by the remarkable patience and compassion of the UNHCR personnel I meet in the field. As humanitarian funding is cut and life-saving services are scaled back, refugees need protection now more than ever. And their stories should not end at finding safety; they must be able to thrive. To continue their stories in classrooms, workplaces, communities, and homes where they can rebuild their lives. Most refugees stay as close to their home countries as they can, often in communities already facing immense pressure. That is where we need to start—not only with aid and shelter, but with opportunities that allow refugees to rebuild their lives with dignity. Seventy-five years since the 1951 Refugee Convention came into being, it remains a vital promise for the world: a critical, cross-generational promise of safety, dignity, and opportunity for everyone forced to flee. With UNHCR, I stand by that promise until everyone is safe.
GH: If there is one misconception about refugees that you wish everyone could let go of, what would it be?
There is a misconception that refugees are somehow fundamentally different from everyone else. Refugees are mothers, fathers, children, doctors, plumbers, students, filmmakers, footballers—people like any of us, whose lives have been violently interrupted. Being a refugee is just a chapter in a life, not the whole story.
There is also a misconception about how much difference to people’s lives each of us can make. We must hold fast to the promise of safety. Many people who have fled terrible violence eventually do find protection, a helping hand, and a reason to go on. When we decide to act, we can make a difference and use whatever we have—our platforms, our money, our networks, our ideas. The doors we can all open, the messages we can spread, the funds we can raise—these things are invaluable. I have seen how powerful every donation is for the UNHCR, every act of support and solidarity. It is now more crucial than ever that we do our part to make that force stronger. If there is one thing this work has taught me over the last decade, it is that compassion is not optional; it is essential.
You can make a difference. Learn more and donate at unhcr.org
