Freesia

Was led to this film by a 3/5 star review in Empire. I was pleasantly surprised by its balance, well-shot imagery of Bradford and lovely music. It avoids stereotypes and easy solutions, posing more questions than answers. The performances are mostly good, especially the young leads. It was clearly a very low budget effort but taking this into account, it's an impressive piece of work.

Very well put together. Has the viewer guessing all the way through. And very timely piece reflecting some real issues and feelings at grass roots level. A fantastic first attempt at covering a very controversial topic.

The parallels drawn between the actual real life Islamophobic incidents are very powerful. A future dimension to add to this would be to cover the links between the Islamophobia and radicalisation. The stabbing victim was outstanding, both in terms of the character he played and the balance try to bring to the mosque Council (and finally to his son) and as an actor. The film should be used for myth busting in schools, breaking down stereotypes, building mutual understanding between communities, particularly in communities/areas where BNP and EDL have got support.

Overall extremely impressed with the powerful message and important message that they've managed to achieve within a minimal budget and limited time.

I really enjoyed this. The film talks about difficult rarely discussed topics with subtlety. I went along to a community screening with a really positive atmosphere. Given the news environment at the moment, this is timely subject matter and we need more films confronting these issues. I haven't seen anything quite like it, hope it inspires other filmmakers from this community to come forward. At the screening I attended, the response was certainly very positive.