“They don’t have access to enough food…it means that they have precarity in terms of where they live and whether they can stay. It shows really just the harshness and the inhumanity of systems and policies which by their very nature are designed to hurt people and divide us”. Yasmine Ahmed, UK Director of Human Rights Watch
“The most striking thing is the way that NRPF (No Recourse to Public Funds) is explored in the film because you have people that are unable to access any kinds of benefits until they can prove that they are destitute. “They don’t have access to enough food…it means that they have precarity in terms of where they live and whether they can stay.” Jeevan Ravindran, journalist
Hostile had a sold out screening and Q&A at Bertha DocHouse on 3rd February. Writer-Director Sonita Gale was joined by the UK Director of Human Rights Watch, Yasmine Ahmed, hosted by journalist Jeevan Ravindran. The Q&A provoked some incredibly powerful questions about how we can truly mobilise to make a difference.
Jeevan Ravindran is a freelance journalist, creative and campaigner. In her journalistic work, she focuses on human rights violations, and this is informed by her own identity as a Tamil woman whose community continues to experience persecution in Sri Lanka.
Yasmine Ahmed is the director of Human Rights Watch, an organisation of roughly 450 people of 70-plus nationalities who are country experts, lawyers, journalists, and others who work to protect the most at risk, from vulnerable minorities and civilians in wartime, to refugees and children in need.
Thank you to Yasmine and Jeevan and to everyone who came – tell us what you thought in the comments and leave a review on Rotten Tomatoes/IMDB. By raising awareness of the film, we can raise awareness of the Hostile Environment and help inspire change.
View the full Q&A below: