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‘My Ancestors were French’ project group

January 30^th 2013

Powerful new short film introduces East Riding based heritage project

East Riding arts project ‘My Ancestors were French’ has released a short film exploring what it feels like to be a stranger in a strange land. The film can be viewed on the project website https://myancestorswerefrench.com/film/

Award-winning filmmaker Quentin Budworth worked with Dilzar Shanga to create the film of his experiences of what it feels like to come to a new land as a refugee. Dilzar describes how music can bring people of different cultures together, overcoming adversity and creating something good and new.

The film will be used at a series of workshops to explore the significance of ancestry using storytelling, music, art and poetry as part of the My Ancestors were French project. https://myancestorswerefrench.com/

Quentin explained, ‘Working on the film with Dilzar was an enlightening and inspiring experience. It was not until I heard about his experiences as a refugee from Kurdistan living in Hull and learnt about his need to make human connections and his desire to be accepted that I realised just how challenging the life of a refugee can be. Making the film was a pleasure and a real eye-opener. I hope that you enjoy the film and its message’

Project team members Richard Duffy-Howard and Dilzar Shanga originally collected and translated emotional and evocative stories as part of Richard Lees’ ‘Seeking Asylum in Hull’ poster exhibition at Wilberforce House Museum (for Wilberforce 2007).

The ‘My Ancestors were French’ project is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund’s All Our Stories scheme, in support of BBC2’s ‘The Great British Story – A People’s History’. The project explores the significance of ancestry and identity, inspired by the story of the first refugees to come to England in the 16th Century, the Huguenots.

You can view the film on the My Ancestors were French website: https://myancestorswerefrench.com/film/

ENDS

Quotes from the film, collected and translated by Richard Duffy-Howard and Dilzar Shanga:

• “When I came to England, to Hull, it was a different language, culture and basically everything was like a big lock. And it was locked. The key to my life in Hull was music. If you take the music out of the world there would be nothing left to make a difference.”

• “I have invited a couple of my friends from Bradford we were walking to town and they were saying we’ve heard Hull’s really bad and I was saying no not really, I’ve got some really good friends and it’s a really nice place to live, I’ve been to other cities but I think Hull is beautiful. Whilst I was talking a taxi passed us and the taxi driver leaned out of the window and started shouting ‘go back to your own country’, you know really shouting, really angry and my friend was saying well it must be really hard to live in Hull. I said ok there are some idiots but I have some really good friends here, don’t believe all the rumours. With that, the taxi got to the end of Spring Bank and turned around, he drove back just so he could hurl abuse at us for a second time. I was really mad; I was just telling my friends how beautiful Hull was.”

• “Once I went to one of the supermarkets in a shopping centre. I went to pay, I paid and I said thank you and the woman at the checkout smiled and said thank you too. The way she said it and looked at me she really meant it. This was the first time someone here had said thank you to me. I can’t explain how it made me feel but it made the rest of my day wonderful.”

• “I was waiting at a bus stop there was a woman with a child in a push-chair the bus came and she was struggling to get on and I said ‘do you want help with the push-chair?’ She said ‘no, but you can hold my baby’ and when she got off the bus and I said ‘do you want help with the push-chair’ and she said ‘no but you can hold my baby again’ and because in this country usually people would not trust someone like me, but she did, it made me feel good because she showed me that not everyone believes the lies some people tell about us.”

• “My friend, he’s Kurdish too, he can go to night clubs in town, pubs, anywhere, he has a great time and comes home feeling good. Nobody tells him to ‘go back to your own country’, but he doesn’t look like me. His skin is whiter and he’s got blue eyes.”

• “In my city, Hewler in Kurdistan, it is very flat just like Hull. Many years ago people built a hill in the middle of the city with their hands, so you could see it from miles around and know that you were close to home. When you see it after a long journey, it warms your heart and lifts your spirit. Here I travel with my band all over England to beautiful places with good people, playing at parties and gigs, but we know it’s not home and at the end of the night when we are really tired we know we have to go back. When we see the Humber Bridge, it’s like the hill in the middle of Hewler. We look at each other, smile and say ‘Yeah! Let’s go!’ “

• “My home in Kurdistan I shared with seven sisters, three brothers, my mum and my dad. There is a beautiful garden. We have two different orange trees, olive, pomegranate and a grapefruit tree, which isn’t really grapefruit, it’s much more special. There are two grapevines in the garage, one black and one white. The roof of our house is flat; you can go to sleep up there watching the stars. And the stars are like nothing else. Everything is so clear you can navigate by them; you always know where you are. It is like being on a different planet. It is so beautiful. But I had to leave. I had no choice. I was seventeen. I have been looking for the stars since I’ve been in England but I can’t see them.”

• “Even though I have seen many horrors in my life, I still think I am lucky because I have brought good things from Kurdistan and I can see the good things in England.”