H is For Hostile Environment (Documentary, 2021) Mature

H Is For Hostile Environment (working title) is an artists film by Edwin Mingard and researcher, writer and ethnographic consultant Dr Keren Weitzberg, produced by Elizabeth Benjamin. The work addresses ideas around hostility and hospitality, providing a space for people who have suffered under the UK’s border regime to speak about their experiences, whilst also celebrating the rich contribution that people who’ve moved to the UK from overseas have made to our shared social and cultural life.

The work comprises 26 sections, each made in collaboration with a partner who has first-hand experience of the issues at hand. Each section is developed, and then collaboratively made, together.

The Hostile Environment is the name given by then-Home Secretary Theresa May to a basket of government policies which aimed to co-opt large parts of UK society into policing the UK’s borders - from doctors to landlords, employers, homeless services and more. The policy had the stated aim of combatting ‘illegal immigration’ but had real-world, devestating effects on the lives of many thousands of people who live in the UK with migrant heritage. Its most notorious effect was the Windrush Scandal, where large numbers of people of Caribbean heritage, who had lived in the UK for decades and should have enjoyed full citizenship rights, were barred from employment, healthcare, education, benefits and more, and faced mass deportation at the hands of the Home Office.

Part of the process involved commissioning artists and non-artists alike, with lived experience of the Hostile Environment, to develop themes that will appear in the finished work.

Once completed, the film will be exhibited in East London at various locations TBC.