BRIDGE

+ TUNNEL PRODUCTIONS PRESS RELEASE: STOP PRESS!!! 1 May 2012

Refugee teen drama I Am Nasrine to screen in Parliament.

Building on its fast-growing reputation for depicting the daily struggle of young asylum seekers in the UK, Tina Gharavis tale of immigration and identity is set for a special screening at The Houses of Parliament on 22 May. The screening is sponsored by Bethnal Green and Bow MP Ali Rushanara and will be attended by parliamentarians and special invitees, including cast members, to be followed by a Q & A session with director Tina Gharavi.
In our economic climate this is a film of vital importance. It is now, in this uncertain climate, that the innocent strangers in our midst could so easily be victimised. Tina has made a life enhancing film. An important and much needed film. - Sir Ben Kingsley, Oscar-winning actor and patron for I Am Nasrine

I Am Nasrine is a coming of age drama that tracks the lives of Iranian teenagers Ali and Nasrine who are forced to flee their homeland and start a new life in the UK. After being targeted by the oppressive Iranian regime, Nasrine (Micsha Sadeghi) is sent by her family to live in the UK under the watchful eye of her brother Ali (Shiraz Haq). Once she arrives in the North East of England, Nasrine soon falls in with her new classmate Nichole (Nichole Halls) and her brother Leigh (Steven Hooper) from the local traveler community and she begins to taste real freedom for the first time, much to the dismay of her more traditional brother. But British culture and attitudes are also affecting Ali more than he realises. Soon both world events and personal traumas will change their lives forever.
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I am Nasrine was shot on a budget of just 100,000 in 2009. Filming was split between locations around the North East and covert filming in Iran. There, against the backdrop of The Green Revolution, director Tina Gharavi and her team worked under the guise of shooting a different film, more palatable to the Iranian censors, assisted by a group of Iranian filmmakers who risked their lives to bring the story of the situation in Iran to the rest of the world. The raw footage was later smuggled out of Iran by Gharavi for editing alongside the English material. Tina Gharavi says: Our goal with I Am Nasrine is to show how and why young refugees and asylum seekers end up living in places like Tyneside and to highlight the challenges they face in growing up in a new and very different country. Hopefully screening this film will lead to a law change that allows asylum seekers to work while their claim is processed and it will raise awareness of how the current situation discriminates against asylum seekers and forces them into the black economy and gives them a second trauma. Response to the film has been overwhelmingly positive. Leading industry publication Screen International called it an impressively earnest tale of cultural differences and coming of age that has a faint tinge of some of the work of Ken Loach. This is a strong UK feature made on a shoestring. Young actress Micsha Sadeghi gives a strong performance as a young girl struggling with her identity and is ably supported by Shiraz Haq as her stoic yet confused brother. Tina Gharavi films in a loose, naturalistic style that mostly works in giving the film an intimate and emotional feel. The films political and humanitarian themes have also earned support and praise from charitable organisations. Keith Best, chief executive of the Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture (Freedom from Torture) was greatly impressed by a film which conveys such a strong message on so many levels: it portrays the problems faced by Iranians fleeing from the injustices and denial of human rights that they experience in their own country and the added difficulties they face when trying to make their way in the UK especially against a background of enforced illegal working and hostility; hopefully this film and event will humanise the asylum situation for people. We have a situation in this country where people leaving great trauma in their home countries arrive here only to find themselves in another trauma here. There is a culture of not believing people who arrive here and that doubt and suspicion is psychologically very tough for those who may already be suffering. See how the audiences have responded to I am Nasrine here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uSMR6UVA3U&feature=youtu.be * I Am Nasrine (dir. Tina Gharavi, UK/Iran 2012, 88mins) is playing at the The Houses of Parliament in London at 7pm, Tuesday 22nd May and is an invitation only event. Further dates in London and around the UK to be announced soon. The I Am Nasrine official trailer can be found at: http://www.tinyurl.com/iamnasrine The I Am Nasrine official Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/IAmNasrine For further press details, please contact: James Richard Baillie, Producer Bridge + Tunnel Productions Baillie@bridgeandtunnelproductions.com www.bridgeandtunnelproductions.com 07547698844
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