VII Leeds Underground Film Festival
Celebrating National Refugee Week
‘Refugees and Us, No One is Illegal’

15 and 17 June- 6-9 pm
Lecture Theatre 2- City Campus-Leeds Metropolitan University.
Free Entry- All Welcome-
Groups and political parties welcome to have a stall.

15 June from 6 pm – Refugee Council Speaker plus films:
Gas Attack (UK,71 min)
Set amongst the high rise estates of Glasgow, the home of many recently
arrived asylum seekers as part of the government's dispersal programme. The
drama begins during an apparently commonplace winter flu epidemic. But
doctors are puzzled by the strange symptoms of this flu and cannot
understand why it is only affecting a relatively small cross-section of the
community. One asylum support unit worker is not satisfied by the flu
argument and wonders if environmental health hazards are to blame. But when
one man dies, the post mortem results reveal the shocking truth - the deadly
germ anthrax killed him.



But even in the face of this evidence, the authorities are unwilling to
believe what is becoming increasingly obvious - that north Glasgow has been
subject to a silent and deadly terrorist attack. Someone has deliberately
released anthrax amongst the immigrant community and the panic both inside
and outside the hospital is mounting fast. Central to the drama is a Kurdish
refugee, Sherko, and his 12 year old daughter, Resa. Sherko remembers the
full horror of being gassed in northern Iraq by Saddam Hussein and now
watches in horror as his daughter succumbs to the deadly infection.


Into the Unknown (Prod: Stuart Jones- Nothern Film School)
A film about how asylum seekers get to this country, the struggles they face
when they get here, and the porblems they have staying. It is more of a look
into the personal struggles and an attempt to address the pre-conceptions
that peoplehave about them, rather than a look into the politics of their
situation.

Asylum UK. running time: 28’30 A documentary film produced in late 2003, in
which Graeme Berman, Peter Griffiths and Parminder Kullar investigate the
lives of asylum seekers in Leeds. Includes interviews with members of the
public, those involved in the immigration support network, and two asylum
seekers who have been ordered to return to places where they fear for their
lives. English, Kurdish and French, with English subtitles.

17 June from 6 pm
THE BARBEQUE PEOPLE (Israel,2002)-starts on time
The Barbeque People- (Dir: David Ofek,Yossi Madmony- Israel, 2002)
Independence Day, Israel, 1988… during the first Intifada…An Israeli family
of Jewish immigrants from Iraq is celebrating holding a barbeque on a grassy
knoll overlooking the beach of a small working class town.
This is the framewok of the film’s story, from which various personal
stories of the family members stem, as they intersect and shed light on one
another. Loyalty is exposed as treachery,truth as falsehood.
The mother’s teenage sweetheart reappears at the beginning of the film,
setting the plot in motion. The father is sent to a voyage to New York to
seek a childhood friend that has disappeared . The children find themselves
dragged into an absurd story of suspense centered on the murder of an
Israeli porn actress in New York.
Beneath the grassy knoll where the feast is held there used to be an
advanced army post during the War of Independence. Next to it it was an Arab
village. That village no longer exist.

‘The Barbeque People’ has been shown in Film Festivals around the globe and
has won many Awards in the US and Latin America-


Poetry Reading with Siobhan Mac Mahon
Siobhan is an Irish poet and playwright, resident in Leeds. Her passion for
embodying and communicating the spoken word, is reflected in her vital and
often comic performance, which draws on the ancient art of story telling as
an oral tradition. At times she draws you deep into the mystical Celtic
twilight world where trees talk and the sea calls you home. Then, before you
know it you are facing the tragic/comic role that religion has played in
Irish womens lives and sexuality, bringing you right back into the 21st
century. Siobhan writes and performs widely as well as being instrumental in
promoting and developing performance poetry, devising and running projects
which explore and celebrate the spoken word.

Open Debate on Torture and Racism with Refugees and Guest Speakers,Eva Pinthus,Leeds Social Forum ,Unite against Fascism,
Kurdish Iraqui refugee (victim of torture) and others.