Sean McAllister → Hull's Angel

Hull's Angel

"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

© Sukhdev Sandhu, The Telegraph, December 14, 2002 → Films about asylum-seekers involve us looking at the world through their eyes, and in doing so, we're granted a unique perspective. Alert to the possibilities of being conned and exploited, and the need to get ahead at all times, the asylum-seeker is all eyes and ears, forced to be attentive to the shifting landscapes he traverses. Like the children in Iranian films, whose unique perspective on society he shares (both are margin-walkers - between innocent youth and canny adulthood, and between reviled foreign-ness and belated acceptance), he is alive to newness, possibility, awe. Read more

© Rich Mills, 2002 → When I started thinking about this piece, I was originally just going to write about the evening out I had on Saturday (July 19th). I and others around me experienced the cultural diversity that Hull has to offer. A Zulu wedding, a Salsa Night in aid of Deaf Children, Déjà Vu at The Welly, my diverse bunch of mates My banging night out! However on Tuesday (July 22nd) night I watched 'Hull's Angel', a documentary made by Hull people about Hull people. It was the story of a woman from Hull who gave her time freely and willingly to help the recent additions to our ever-changing melting-pot of a city. Read more