Director/writer Ben Sharrock knows he’s taken on a serious subject with his second feature film, Limbo. Refugees are never far from today’s headlines, for a whole host of reasons, and his film shows them as individuals rather than statistics.
The group of asylum seekers in the film are stranded on a remote Scottish island, awaiting a decision on their applications for refugee status. They have no control over what will happen and are stranded in an unwelcoming world where all they can do is wait. The film concentrates particularly on one of the group, Omar, played by Amir El-Masry, who finds it difficult to adjust to a new, uncertain way of life and clings to the last symbol of his Syrian home, his oud, a traditional stringed instrument.
While it examines a serious subject, Sharrock wanted to introduce some humour into the film. He admits the deadpan tone is very much his own style, and he couldn’t resist including something of an homage to Scottish film director, Bill Forsyth, but balancing the overall tone was a substantial job and every part of the filmmaking process, starting with the writing, affected it. Most importantly of all, during his research, he asked actual refugees about giving the film an element of humour. “The answer,” he recalls, “was a resounding yes.”
Shooting the film on a Scottish island presented a whole raft of challenges. El-Masry recalls being excited about it because it was out of his comfort zone. “I grew up in London so I’m used to a busier landscape and relished being in quieter place,” he recalls. But he also describes making the film as “one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever done” because of the freezing cold and the subject matter.
‘Limbo’ is in cinemas from 30 July.
