2016-04-28T103800Z_1149868334_D1AETAYNAUAB_RTRMADP_3_EUROPE-MIGRANTS-AIWEIWEI
Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei looks on as he visits a migrant's makeshift camp on the Greek-Macedonian border, near the village of Idomeni, Greece, March 9, 2016. Ai is in Greece to shoot a documentary. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov

The Chinese dissident artist, Ai Weiwei said that he will release a documentary film next year on the refugee crisis.

Ai, often described as China's most high-profile artist, was speaking at a news conference in Bern to mark the opening of the "Chinese Whispers" exhibition, featuring around 150 works of contemporary Chinese artists - including Ai Weiwei artwork "Fragments"- at the Zentrum Paul Klee museum in Bern.

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.

"It's a documentary film, we have been shooting over 600 hours, and I've did hundred of interviews, there is all kind of people: politicians, refugees or priests or NGOs…all kind of people involved in this crisis," Weiwei told reporters.

"The film is going to come out next year. Now we are still, we are still doing last shootings since the refugees situation is continuous, it's never really, doesn't seem to be a stop so we still have difficulty to even, to 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.

Ai said he was surprised to see European countries were not being more helpful on the issue of the refugee crisis.

"I can see how Europe has been…not act as a society which can offer this very essential help or sympathy for those unfortunate people. And which is really a test for our humanity and our human rights condition," he said.

Ai was unable to leave China for four years after his passport was confiscated at the airport when he was preparing to fly out of the country in April 2011. He was detained for 81 days after which he was released into a form of house arrest. Chinese authorities returned the document in July last year.

China