www.seanmcallister.com
The Minders
Tenfoot Films 1998
Director : Sean McAllister
Editor : Ollie Huddleston
The Minders
BBC2 1998.
Nominated for Royal Television Society Award.
This extraordinary film was made by Sean McAllister during the last Iraqi crisis (the one defused by the
UN's Kofi Annan in person). With air strikes averted, McAllister decided to carry on filming, making a
double portrait of his two Ministry of Information minders, Kifah and Alla.
The likeable and decent Kifah, a former English teacher enjoying a rare spell
of paid work, is a football mad Anglophile: 'I can't forget Bobby Moore,' he sighs.
Alla, Head of Protocol, is a suave ladies' man and pop fan (very taken with Chumbawumba). McAllister
carries on filming Kifah after he is dropped as a minder and in doing so creates an illuminating and
touching picture of the man and of everyday life in Iraq.
© Nigel Andrew, The Daily Mail.
