91Èȱ¬

Documentary-maker Nick Broomfield's first dramatic feature since his ill-fated Diamond Skulls, Ghosts traces the events leading up to the drowning of 23 Chinese cockle-pickers in February 2004 off Morecambe Bay. Employing a cast of non-professional actors, whose own life experiences relate to those of the fictional characters, Broomfield has fashioned a powerfully sober and sincere work, which illuminates the appalling conditions of virtual slavery endured by illegal immigrant workers in contemporary Britain.

Ghosts focusses on Ai Qin (Ai Qin Lin), a young mother from China who borrows $25,000 dollars from a Snakehead gang to be smuggled into the United Kingdom, a process which involves a gruelling six-month journey overland. Forced to take up a series of woefully paid factory and agricultural jobs, Ai Qin is exploited by both the boorish fixer Mr Lin (Zhan Yu) and her British employers alike - her accommodation is a filthy two-bedroom house shared by 15 colleagues - and she learns that back in Fujian the money-lenders are threatening her family, whom she is struggling to support.

"BLURS THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN DOCUMENTARY AND FICTION"

Like Michael Winterbottom's In This World, the digitally-shot Ghosts blurs the distinctions between documentary and fiction, with its hand-held camerawork, natural lighting, and authentic locations. And the film's title has a double-meaning: on one level it's the word used by Chinese people to describe Westerners, but it also reflects the way our own society chooses to ignore the exploitation endured by Ai Qin and the thousands of other workers toiling beneath the minimum wage.