Ms Tamang was excited to start her Masters in Social Change and Development at the University of Newcastle when Australia's international borders opened to foreign students on December 1.īut her plans came crashing down on Monday when the federal government banned all non-citizens from entering the country to try and curtail the potential spread of Omicron - a new strain of Covid-19. Niya Tamang, 24, is among 200,000 visa holders stuck in limbo for at least a fortnight while the government tries to get a handle on the mutant strain of coronavirus and its responsiveness to vaccines. Nevertheless, all in all a very watchable, thought-provoking piece.A young Nepalese woman who worked in an orphanage to save $28,000 to study in Australia fears she’ll lose her money after the borders were slammed shut as a precaution against the worrying new Omicron variant. A pity also that a decision to just let the music speak for itself until the very end is denied us as Omar's playing gets absorbed into the vacuous drone soundtrack. This tonal shift is a brave one, but still jars a little, with Sharrock grasping at a profundity that is a little beyond his reach here, and in doing so also risks giving in to a sentimentalised melodrama that he has skilfully avoided up to this point. Limbo takes a more serious turn in its latter stages, when painful secrets and unexpected tragedies darken the otherwise largely playful mood, as does a climatic surreal scene reconnecting Omar with his brother. A skilled oud player in his past life, Omar now seems too depressed for music, haunted by guilt over the family he abandoned, especially older brother Nabil (Kais Nashif), who stayed behind to fight in Syria’s civil war - the scenes depicting the brief communication with his parents from a callbox are very powerful indeed.ĭrawing on his personal experiences of living in the Middle East, including working in refugee camps, Sharrock depicts the migrant experience with a refreshingly light touch, although some of the more surreal elements, notably the absurd “cultural awareness” lessons hosted by their well-meaning hosts, don't really come off, and it strains credulity to believe that the casual racist abuse directed at these outsiders by the island’s young white natives quickly dissolves into mutual respect, as does a running joke in which Sharrock paints his refugee protagonists as obsessive fans of kitsch American and European pop culture. Omar shares a dingy cottage with the eccentric Afghani Farhad and two bickering brothers from West Africa. The episodic plot of Limbo centres on Omar (Amir El-Masry), a refugee from war-torn Syria, as he and the other migrants wait to hear whether the British government will grant them asylum. A visually stunning landscape of treeless hills, deserted roads, wide-open sky and rocky coastline, the unnamed island location of Limbo is a key character in the story, serving both a dramatic and psychological function. Writer-director Ben Sharrock displays a winning flair for small observational detail and is generally successful at casting a refreshingly humane eye on a politically contentious topic that is often sensationalised by the media. This one's a bleakly comic drama (definitely more drama than comedy, although the humour is never far away) about a group of misfit asylum-seekers stranded in surreal exile in a remote Scottish backwater town. Actors: Sidse babett Knudsen, Kenneth Collard, Amir El-Masry, Vikash Bhai, Ola Orebiyi, Kwabena Ansah, Sodienye Ojewuyi, Adam Abdalrhman, Darina El Joundi, Nayef Rashed, Cameron Fulton, Lewis Gribben, Silvie Furneaux, Iona Elizabeth Thomson, Barbara Hunter, Kais Nashif, Shereen Sadiq, Hayan Rich, Rob Keltie, Raadi Madhi Directors: Ben Sharrock Producers: Angus Lamont, Irune Gurtubai Voiced By: Bobby Paton Writers: Ben Sharrock Others: Ben Sharrock (Writer/Director), Irune Gurtubai (Producer) Studio: Mubi Genres: British Films, Comedy, Drama, New Releases Countries: UK This deadpan comedy-drama from a bold new voice in British cinema shines a light on the hearts and lives of those at the centre of a crisis that is mostly only experienced through the headlines.
Among them is Omar (Amir El-Masry), a young Syrian musician struggling with the guilt, regret and grief that comes with leaving his former life behind. Set on a fictional remote Scottish island, it follows a group of new arrivals as they await the results of their asylum claims. Ben Sharrock's critically adored 'Limbo' is a wry, funny and poignant cross-cultural satire that subtly sews together the hardship and hope of the refugee experience.