Aisha director Frank Berry: ‘We need an asylum seeker system that’s more mindful of human rights’

The direct provision system for asylum-seeker accommodation has been a source of controversy for two decades. Yet the subject has had limited play on film or television drama. The issues will still be obscure to many otherwise well-informed people.

“We need a system that’s more mindful of human rights,” Frank Berry, director of the incoming Aisha, tells me. “With dignity, with medical care – and all those fundamental human rights that are outlined by the UN. The system as it is – and as it was – doesn’t respect those rights.”

Berry is just the filmmaker to tackle the subject. For more than a decade, the Dubliner has been developing a reputation as our foremost social realist. His first feature, a lovely documentary called Ballymun Lullaby, began as a small-scale project to raise money for Ron Cooney’s music project in that housing estate. I Used to Live Here emerged from an article in this newspaper on a surge of suicides. Michael Inside, released in 2017, took an unimpressed look at the Irish prison system. While researching that last film, he came across the striking fact that the Department of Justice ran both prisons and direct provision. That struck him as odd.

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“I read a really interesting article in The Irish Times called ‘Lives in limbo’, which explored the direct provision system,” Berry says. “So I just thought: I’d like to know more about this. Sometimes a project comes along where I just feel like I want to know more in an authentic way. And so I made contact with Lucky Khambule, who is a co-founder of Movement of Asylum Seekers Ireland. The first step I make is always to try and position myself responsibly. That was 2017.”

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Somebody early on said to me that the manager in their centre worked his way up from the kitchen. Great for him, but is this manager the right person to be dealing with people who are traumatised?

Five strange years later, Aisha arrives to open the Cork International Film Festival. Berry has secured a first-rate cast. Letitia Wright, elsewhere eating up the box office in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, stars as the eponymous protagonist - a young Nigerian woman seeking asylum in contemporary Ireland. We watch as she endures both large and small stresses. The staff at her accommodation are dismissive. There are endless delays on her application. We learn that, despite securing work at a hairdresser’s, she can be moved to another location with no notice. Distraction comes when she makes friends with a new employee at the centre played by Josh O’Connor (a long way from his role as a young Prince Charles in The Crown).

The film is full of small details that feel culled from research. Aisha attempts to heat her own food in the centre’s microwave as she doesn’t trust the Halal arrangements, but is told that this is not allowed.

“A lot of the people told me they had no faith that the managers had been trained to deal with vulnerable people,” Berry says. “An awful lot of discussions were around a lack of training – somebody early on said to me that the manager in their centre worked his way up from the kitchen. Great for him, but is this manager the right person to be dealing with people who are traumatised?”

I feel that I got my filmmaking more from my mother. She is just a great listener and somebody with a very strong conviction for social justice. I was listening to her my whole life. Her values are in the films

And yet. Aisha does not demonise the staff. There is a sense of them talking down to asylum seekers, but there is little explicit racism or naked cruelty in the film. There is more a sense of cogs clunking in an ill-designed machine.

“I did this in Michael Inside as well. There, I didn’t want to vilify the prison guards in the way you might for a genre film. I feel that’s less real. I met some managers early on. I met a business person, and I also met somebody who I felt was empathic. I wanted it to be very fair and very real. But I also wanted to express the fact that they’re running it like a business.”

This is a point worth making. The majority of the centres are run on a for-profit basis by private contractors. They are not run like schools or hospitals. There are not even run like prisons. Often the rules of business supersede those of care. Aisha premiered at the Tribeca Festival in New York before moving on to the London Film Festival. I wonder if Frank has got any sense if other countries have similar problems with their immigration systems.

“It became a conversation about immigration systems in general, and I learned that, no, we’re not alone,” he says. “What I found really interesting was how this system speaks to our past. It’s another oppressive system like the industrial schools. The last mother and baby home was, I think, closed down in 1995. And the first direct provision centre opened in 1999. There are conversations to be had about how these systems were developed for profit.”

Berry is every bit as agreeable as his humane films suggest. A fresh-faced fellow in sight of early middle age, he grew up in the Foxfield corner of Raheny. Unsurprisingly for someone who backed into film-making, he admits that, as a young fellow, he would never have expected to be sitting where he sits today. Berry didn’t really think about the medium as a career until he did a video course at college.

“When I was younger my dad was always an enthusiastic amateur photographer,” Berry says. “And he used to film us with cine cameras. People would say that I must have got my filmmaking from my dad. But actually, as I got older, I started to reflect, and I feel that I got my filmmaking more from my mother. She is just a great listener and somebody with a very strong conviction for social justice. I was listening to her my whole life. Her values are in the films.”

I love film-making and I’m drawn to the prospect of making something about my own history, my own life. That’s always there. Apart from that, I just come across a subject and find that it won’t let me go

That makes sense. Each of his three dramatic features sprang from paying attention to excluded voices. Ballymun Lullaby began as a community video when he was working as a teacher. I Used To Live Here, featuring an eye-catching performance by the now-busy Jordanne Jones, started out as a documentary and evolved into a drama. Like Mike Leigh or Ken Loach, he has developed a singular approach to his work. I wonder if he could ever see himself breaking with that to make a film that didn’t emerge from such research. Maybe a rom-com? Stranger things have happened.

“Not a rom-com I think,” he says with a smile. “I’m not drawn to those at the moment. I love film-making and I’m drawn to the prospect of making something about my own history, my own life. That’s always there. Apart from that, I just come across a subject and find that it won’t let me go.”

At any rate, he has now shifted into another league. Aisha played at Tribeca. It stars your woman out of Marvel and your man off The Crown. One wonders how that came to pass.

At the cast and crew screening, a friend of a member of the crew came along and they said that they’d heard Josh was in this film, but they were waiting for him to show up. That’s a pretty good compliment for Josh

“Letitia got the script. It landed in her office and she asked if she could be considered – very humbly,” he says. “I have been watching her for maybe eight to 10 years. She was amazing in Steve McQueen’s Mangrove. We spoke on the phone and realised we are both driven by the same convictions.”

Born in Guyana, raised in north London, Wright had her own challenges playing a Nigerian woman in Dublin, but most Irish viewers will be more focused on how well (or badly) Josh O’Connor – a middle-class fellow from Cheltenham – manages as a working-class Dub. Brilliantly, as it transpires. Hunched and reticent, he is, despite no obvious changes to appearance, almost unrecognisable in the role. Berry explains that O’Connor worked hard on his accent with the actor Emmet Kirwan and that the two would exchange voice messages in the run-up to filming. But it’s not just about the accent. It’s also about posture.

“At the cast and crew screening, a friend of a member of the crew came along and they said that they’d heard Josh was in this film, but they were waiting for him to show up. That’s a pretty good compliment for Josh.”

As Berry’s career has progressed he has moved from working with non-professional actors to established stars such as Wright and O’Connor. He explains that no great shift in approach is required.

“When I worked with non-professionals in my first two films I had to find a way of getting them comfortable – so their true selves would come out,” Berry says. “I soon realised that working with well-known actors wasn’t a million miles away from that. We would talk about the subjects of the film early on – and make sure everyone knew what film we were making. And we’d bond on those early conversations.”

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Aisha lands in a different cinematic environment to that which welcomed Michael Inside five years ago. The film has been sold to Sky and, on the same day it opens in cinemas, will be available to download for millions of home viewers. I wonder what effect Berry hopes it will have. A new system is due to replace direct provision in 2024. Lessons can, perhaps, be drawn from his researches.

“Shorter waiting times,” he says. “Own-door accommodation. Just less barriers and more respect.”

That doesn’t sound a lot to ask.

Aisha is in cinemas and is available to stream from November 17th