PRESS RELEASE
‘How Long is Indefinite?’
Detention without time limit in the UK
Documentary Premiere
Every year the UK Border Agency holds thousands of migrants in Immigration Removal Centres without knowing when or if they can deport them. There is no time limit to this detention; they are held indefinitely often for years on end.
‘How Long is Indefinite?’ exposes an absurd and inhumane detention system through the lives of three people trapped in limbo with no end in sight. The powerful evocation of detention from those going through it highlights a detrimental and futile practice and asks if it can ever be justified.
Fouad, an Iranian political activist, came to the UK as a refugee in 2000 and has been detained for over 19 months; the Iranian embassy won’t accept him back, yet the UKBA refuses to release him. He remains in limbo with no future. His friends and fiancé describe the impact of his incarceration as a situation in which they can do nothing but wait. Fouad shares his experiences of a system as seven months of an ordeal in which he is seen as subhuman. We also hear from Saleh, a Darfurian asylum seeker torn from his children after 20 years in the UK and detained for almost 2 years, unable to prove his ethnicity and Aissata whose detention experience drove her to hunger strike for 28 days. Professionals in detention law and practice reveal the bureaucracy behind this system that result in its failure to function for the purposes of those in and outside its walls.
‘How Long is Indefinite’ reveals how the fear created around immigration manifests in this unbearable detention limbo and asks how such treatment can be accepted in a society heralding civil liberties and human rights.
A Q&A with the Director Alexis Wood and contributors will follow the screening.
An exhibition from Nana Varveropoulou and those formerly detained accompanies the screening. Nana exhibits initial work from her photography project "No Man’s Land”, an ongoing collaborative project that explores experiences of indefinite immigration detention, produced by a group of detainees at Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre.
Reza, formerly held in detention for 18 months, shares paintings and drawings inspired by his experiences of the UK detention system.
To find out more about the documentary project or to get involved please go to our facebook group ‘How Long is Indefinite?’ documentary: http://tinyurl.com/2vsvn79
For press enquiries please contact howlongisindefinite@hotmail.co.uk or call the Director Alexis Wood on 0794 774 3396
How Long is Indefinite is produced in association with Glocal Films http://www.glocalfilms.net/
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