IDMC: Faces of Internal Displacement
Animated stories supporting public understanding of displacement
Client: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre
Project: Faces of Internal Displacement
Services: Narrative development, testimony-led storytelling, animation direction, illustration direction, visual storytelling, sensitive subject communication
Oakbeam Pictures worked with the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre to create a series of animated films raising awareness of internal displacement and the experiences of people affected by it.
Our role was to translate complex research, data and first-hand testimony into clear, respectful visual narratives. Each film was shaped around lived experience, helping audiences understand the human realities behind displacement without sensationalising the subject matter or losing the complexity of the research.
The challenge.
Internal displacement is often communicated through statistics, reports and policy language, but behind the data are people whose lives, homes and futures have been disrupted.
IDMC needed a way to help wider audiences engage with the human realities behind its research, while handling sensitive lived experience with accuracy, dignity and care.
The challenge was to create films that felt accessible and emotionally engaging, without simplifying the issue or sensationalising the people affected by it.
The approach.
Each film was shaped around real experiences collected through IDMC’s research. Oakbeam worked closely with the research team to translate those accounts into short animated narratives that could communicate clearly to non-specialist audiences.
The visual style was developed to feel human, textured and respectful, giving the stories emotional presence while preserving enough distance to protect the people behind them.
Animation allowed the films to move between personal experience, place, memory and wider context in a way that live action or report-based communication would have struggled to do.
Four stories of displacement
Jafar, Iraq
Jafar’s story explores how persistent drought disrupted his ancestral home and traditional way of life. Based on real experiences collected by IDMC in Iraq, the film shows how internal displacement can be driven by slow-onset environmental change as well as conflict or crisis.
Lah Paw, Myanmar
Lah Paw’s story highlights the repeated and often invisible nature of internal displacement. Displaced more than ten times within Myanmar, her experience reflects the reality faced by many internally displaced people, who remain within their own countries and are often less visible internationally than refugees.
Daniela, Columbia
Daniela’s story explores the long-term consequences of land loss, violence and repeated displacement. After a paramilitary group seized her land, her attempt to reclaim it twenty years later triggered new threats and forced her to flee within Colombia multiple times.
Grace, Nigeria
Grace’s story shows how displacement can remain unresolved even after someone returns or chooses to stay. Having fled Boko Haram in Nigeria and crossed into neighbouring Cameroon multiple times, Grace eventually decided to remain in Nigeria, but her life continues to be precarious and she remains internally displaced.
The outcome.
The final series helped IDMC communicate complex research through personal, accessible animated stories. Each film gave audiences a way into a different experience of displacement, while the series as a whole supported wider understanding of the issue and the people affected by it.
For Oakbeam, the project was an example of how animation can support sensitive public communication: translating research and testimony into visual stories that are clear, human and carefully handled.
“Oakbeam produced high-quality animations under significant time pressure, handling the work with creativity, responsiveness and care. We were so impressed with the final result that we immediately commissioned a second. I cannot recommend them highly enough.”
— Chloe Sydney, IDMC