Limbo is a British comedy-drama film centred on four asylum seekers – promising musician Omar from Syria, stoic Farhad from Afghanistan, and Nigerian brothers Abedi and Wasef. The men are on a fictional, remote island in Scotland, forbidden from doing paid work and taking cultural awareness classes while they await the processing of their asylum request.
The film is a poignant observation of the refugee experience and the complexity of the movement of people across borders. Director and writer Ben Sharrock and the producer Irune Gurtubai, spent time working for an NGO in refugee camps in southern Algeria and living in Damascus in 2009 shortly before the outbreak of the Syrian civil war and have stated that the film is inspired by personal stories of the friends made during that time.
In Limbo, Ben Sharrock shifts the focus from pity, the sensational and dehumanising images of refugees and asylum seekers to the individual human story, inviting the audience to connect with the person and not the statistics. Humour and humanity abound in Limbo, looking at refugees in a way that goes beyond the label of being a refugee. In Limbo he merges the two realities – one where a group of refugees are sent to Scottish islands and the other, across many European countries, where asylum seekers were being sent to remote communities to wait for their asylum claims. They come together on this weather-beaten remote Scottish island where no film had ever been shot before!
Watching Limbo stirred memories of the 1991 Gulf War, when I found myself in a refugee camp for the thousands of Kurds who had fled to Iran from neighbouring Sulaimaniya in Iraq. Limbo also took me back to childhood memories of my own arrival to the UK, not as a refugee but as an immigrant in the mid-1960s and the struggle to be seen. Grateful that my Father chose Southampton for our arrival and not a remote Scottish island!
Omar, played by Amir El-Masry provides the emotional centre of the film. Born in Cairo, raised in London, he graduated from Royal Holloway with a degree in Criminology and Sociology and then went onto the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) in 2013. He emerged into the UK film and television industry not ready to embrace ‘Arab’ talent! Nevertheless, he has carved out leading roles in Egyptian films, the Hollywood of the Middle East, winning the Best Young Actor at the Egyptian Oscars, and of course, international acclaim in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019).
Amir El-Masry is part of the BAFTA steering committee that led to the BAFTA 2020 Review, with the aim of levelling the playing field. The BAFTA 2020 Review introduced over 120 wide-ranging changes across voting, membership, and campaigning to address a lack of diversity in the 2020 film and television awards. Like Amir, I welcome BAFTA’s initiatives to level the playing field, building on the work for fair representation I was a part of from 2000 to 2005 with the formation of the Cultural Diversity Network. Amir is also part of a newly formed MENA (Middle East and North African) Collective, which is fighting for official recognition in the U.K. industry.
“When you sign forms for acting jobs, and they ask you to state your ethnicity, Arab was always under ‘Other.’ Sometimes it wasn’t even there,” he explains in an interview in Variety. Let us hope we will see more of this highly talented young Arab-British actor in non-stereotypical roles on our film and television screens.
Limbo premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival and received four nominations at the 2020 British Independent Film Awards, winning Breakthrough Producer for Irene Gurtubai. It has also been nominated for two BAFTAs – Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.
Watch the film trailer here, and find the film in cinemas in the UK and Ireland from July 30 and streaming on Mubi later this year.
About Parminder Vir OBE
Parminder Vir OBE has dedicated herself to positively impacting and transforming lives through a professional career spanning 40 years in philanthropy, entrepreneurship, film and television production, arts and culture, and investment funding. She is the co-founder of the Support4AfricaSMEs campaign and The African Farmers Stories, launched in 2020. She served as the CEO of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, based in Lagos, Nigeria from April 2014 to April 2019. Prior to joining the Foundation, Parminder has enjoyed a distinguished career as an awarding winning film and television producer and private equity investor in film and media.
