New film tells of attack on Kurds 
The Scotsman
August 8, 2001

 THE PRODUCER of a film which dramatises the impact of a senseless racist attack on
Glasgow’s Kurdish community yesterday expressed her hope it will prove "a positive
addition" to community affairs. 

 Sam Kingsley who produced Gas Attack, to be premiered at the Edinburgh International
Film Festival, also expressed her profound regret over the murder of Firsat Yildiz. 

 Speaking ahead of Sunday’s launch of the film festival, Ms Kingsley said: "We wouldn’t
want it to inflame or exacerbate the situation, but we feel strongly that the film is
sympathetic to the Kurdish point of view. We hope it will be a positive addition to debate." 

 The plot of Gas Attack explores the havoc wrought on the Kurdish community by a lone
 terrorist armed with phials of a deadly germ and motivated by racism. 

Scripted by Rowan Joffre (the son of Roland Joffre, director of The Mission), it was
developed as a response to the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway and the
Soho nail bomb of 1999. 

The film, whose £650,000 budget was funded by Channel 4 and Scottish Screen, has a
number of unusual features. Notably, its Glasgow-based director Kenny Glenaan prefers to
work with non-actors, and only 15 of cast of 60 are professional performers. 

Glenaan auditioned in his home city and quickly realised a large number of Kurdish
refugees were coming forward, and their real-life experiences began to work into the script. 

Some of the stories were horrifying. One of the film’s stars is 12-year-old Benae Hassan,
who with a large group of Kurdish refugees fled Turkey and was confined in a transit van for
six days. Her tale is told in Gas Attack. 

After suffering appalling privations in the countries of their birth, the Kurds in the film are
exposed in Glasgow to a deadly racist attacker, who unleashes anthrax on their community. 

 Robina Qureshi, director of the anti-racist organisation Positive Action in Housing, plays
the part of a support worker. She said the film exposed the inability of government to
respond to biological terrorism, which offered racists "a poor man’s atomic bomb". 

Ms Qureshi said: "Thinking about the events of the last few days has brought the film into
sharp relief. People have real fears about racism. The film makes real and even more
frightening things that could happen if someone wanted to do that." 
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