Sonita Gale’s Bafta-longlisted documentary is a difficult watch, but it shows powerfully the pain inflicted on innocent people by a broken system
At the height of the pandemic, Farrukh Sair worked on a temporary contract as an NHS IT engineer, setting up computer systems in hospital wards converted to accommodate Covid patients and reconfiguring laptops so that NHS staff were equipped to work from home.
In Sonita Gale’s new documentary, Hostile, Sair explains why he has kept hold of his NHS lanyard. “It reminds me I have been part of something good,” he says. Clinging on to this evidence is important to Sair because elsewhere in his life things are not going so well. After 19 years in the UK, he has had to spend more than £50,000 on Home Office visa fees and legal bills to try to regularise his immigration status. He is still fighting for the right to remain. Both his children were born here, but the whole family could face removal proceedings if his most recent application is refused later this year.
