www.seanmcallister.com
Hull's Angel
Tenfoot Films 2002
Director : Sean McAllister
Editor : Ollie Huddleston
Hull's Angel
True Stories, Channel 4, 2002.
Sean McAllister's Hull's Angel saw him return to his home city to examine the impact of an influx of 1,500 asylum seekers.
After the screening, McAllister said: "When I arrived in Hull the asylum seekers told me about this local lady who did not
even have a home herself but was helping them ... basically they said never mind us, you should do a film on her."
So McAllister found Tina, a 48-year-old former housewife who was in a relationship with a 24-year-old Iraqi.
The man shows McAllister where a bullet has gone through his shoulder during a clash with Saddam's regime.
The film follows Tina for a year as she loses her job, is shunned by her family, and is spat on and punched in the
streets for helping the mostly Kurdish refugees. All this as she wonders whether her boyfriend, who is already married,
just wants a passport out of her. He sends his money to his wife in Iraq while Tina takes a job slaughtering chickens.
"I looked more like Hull's slapper," Tina joked after the screening. But the depth of her humanity is overwhelming.
© The Guardian, 28 0ct 02.
