Writer and Director: Frank Berry
Opening the Irish Film Festival London 2022 is Frank Berry’s Aisha, It’s a quietly moving film about a young Nigerian woman seeking asylum in Ireland which casts fresh light on the plight of those struggling to make a life for themselves within a baffling system.
While waiting for her international protection application to be processed, Aisha is housed at a government hostel. Direct provision provides Aisha, like other asylum seekers in Ireland, with accommodation, food and a modest weekly allowance. Scenes at her hostel suggest the conditions are superficially reasonable and there is a warm community spirit amongst the asylum seekers themselves. But there is an underlying sense of unease: the asylum seekers are vulnerable, at the mercy of the unpredictable security men employed at the hostel. These men are untrained and their recruitment is lax, as evidenced when Conor, who has been in prison on a drugs charge, is given a job at the hostel simply on the nod.
Aisha is intelligent and a devout muslim. She is able to send money back to her widowed mother in Benin thanks to a part-time job in a hairdresser’s. Gradually she reveals her background. Her father has been murdered, unable to repay money borrowed to send her to university. His murder and that of Aisha’s brother happen in the family home. The traumatised Aisha is reluctant to spell out to the Irish authorities the sexual abuse and rape she herself endured in that attack but has sought asylum knowing that if she returns to Nigeria, she too is likely to be murdered.
An unlikely friendship develops between the Conor and Aisha and the strength of the film lies in these two stellar performances. Letitia Wright is magnificent as the dignified, reserved Aisha and Josh O’Connor portrays the good-hearted Conor as insecure, nervous and bashful. They meet because Conor witnesses as scene of injustice. Aisha, a devout muslim, buys herself halal food and has an arrangement with one of the kitchen staff to covertly microwave it at the end of a shift. But the director of the hostel catches her out, forbidding the arrangement and labelling her uncooperative and difficult, a designation that has significant bearings on her future. Conor is moved by her plight and risks taking her to the kitchen after hours so that she can heat her food. His not an articulate lad, but is clearly kind and sensitive.
The spiteful director waits till Conor is not working before sending Aisha to another detention centre far away. Again conditions are bearable, with people are housed in fixed mobile homes. But this time there is no chance for them to work. Conor manages to find his way to see her, but at best the pair have awkward conversations.
Aisha undergoes a series of setbacks as her application is turned down. She is persistent, drafting appeals, and we see her interviewed by a sympathetic woman on behalf of the authorities. But like her, we never know how decisions are being made by the other side. She is kept in a constant state of anxiety.
But this is not a film of comfortable answers. Director Frank Berry deliberately keeps the story arc flattened: we simply see Aisha deal with increasingly difficult issues and while her friendship with Conor is steadfast, this is no Romeo and Juliet situation. Neither of the young people can see much hope in the future. At best they can stand by one another.
Aisha is screening at the Irish Film Festival 2022.
