‘GAS ATTACK’ SCOOPS AWARD AT CHERBOURG

FOLLOWING its success at the Edinburgh Film Festival, Hart Ryan's ‘Gas Attack’ has scooped the award for Best Actress at the recent Cherbourg Film Festival, which celebrates the best in British and Irish films.
Top honours went to the three female leads - Morag Calder, Robina Quereshi and Benae Hassan - each making their acting debuts in roles which reflected their real lives and occupations. The story, which centres around an anthrax attack on asylum seekers in Glasgow, has become all the more salient given the current global, political climate.
Victoria Beattie, Casting Director at Glasgow based company Big Fish, worked closely with director Kenny Glenaan to choose non-professional actors for the roles, a process involving months of auditions and improvisational work with the cast members.
Calder and Quereshi portrayed their real life occupations of nurse and charity worker respectively while Hassan, a twelve year old Kurdish refugee who arrived in the UK a short while before filming began, played the young asylum seeker at the centre of the drama.
(CD)