The Chinese dissident artist, Ai Weiwei said that he will release a documentary film next year on the refugee crisis. Ai, often described as Chinas most high-profile artist, was speaking at a news conference in Bern on 27 April, to mark the opening of the Chinese Whispers exhibition, featuring around 150 works of contemporary Chinese artists – including Fragments – at the Zentrum Paul Klee museum.

Ai said he has spent a lot of time in refugee camps in recent months and witnessed a very difficult situation and decided to share his experience by making a film.

Its a documentary film, we have been shooting over 600 hours, and I did hundreds of interviews. There are all kind of people: politicians, refugees or priests or NGOs...all kinds of people involved in this crisis, Weiwei told reporters.

The film is going to come out next year. Now we are still doing the last shoots since the refugees situation is continuous. It doesnt seem to stop so we still have difficulty to even stop our shooting, we still have six, seven teams still working on that every day, he added.

People fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond have flooded into Europe since early 2015, most making the dangerous sea crossing from Turkey to Greece, then heading north through the Balkans.