Mixed Media Films
Ghosts
Cheap food needs cheap – often illegal – labour. Broomfield’s drama is about the human cost, and it reeks authenticity.
So, to play illegal Chinese workers in Britain, he casts non-professional actors who had themselves been illegal entrants. A risky strategy, but then his actors are superb – especially Ai Qin Lin, as Ai Qin, who has paid smugglers $25,000 dollars and left her child behind.
Broomfield never forces anything, and his story – based around the drowning of 23 Chinese cockle pickers at Morecambe Bay in 2004 – arises naturally from their circumstances. And, filming in real locations like meat plants and shitty (sometimes literally) overcrowded hovels, he creates a powerful feeling of entrapment and exclusion.
He pulls it off admirably – this is sickeningly convincing, but not without hope.
- Product information
- directed and co-written by Nick Broomfield
- Star rating
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Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
