Some of the audience at the screening of 'Begums', about Latvian workers in Ireland, share their reactions with FIONA McCANN
BEGUMS, a documentary by Latvian director Ivars Zviedris that was screened as part of Dublin International Film Festival at the weekend, shows the experience of Latvian immigrants recruited by a fellow countryman to harvest sea shells in Ireland.
They work in hard conditions, and live together in cramped houses, with their boss Valdis looking after their meagre requirements. There are over 40,000 Latvians registered in Ireland, with the unofficial estimate double that. So how was the film received?
ILZE TROPA-ADEBAYO
Latvian living here since 2000
I loved it. You ask how it portrays Latvians, but I think the question must be asked: how bad is the [Latvian] government’s attitude to people in Latvia if they are happy to work here in those conditions? I wasn’t aware that people worked like that. It was a very powerful film.
JOLANTA SMITE
Latvian living here since 2001
The film was so impressive. I had a laugh, I cried. I’m here a long time, and I know loads of stories of Latvians in Ireland, but that one that I saw in this movie was so sad. It wasn’t a surprise, because I remember myself in 2001 when I came to Ireland – I started out in similar circumstances. Maybe not that bad, but working very hard, picking tomatoes in greenhouses, planting daffodils. It was hard, but for those [people in the film] I think it’s a hundred times harder. It didn’t make me angry, just so sad. If I could, I’d help them – tell them that even working in McDonald’s or Burger King is better than that. But if you come to a different country and you can’t speak the language, you go nowhere. Where can you go, where can you ask for help if no one understands your language?
SILLVIJA JONES
Latvian living here several decades
Photographically, the Irish scenery was beautiful. It’s not a [tourist board] “come to Latvia” film, it’s not meant to be. It’s only what can happen to some people. But I’m surprised there is such a thing. From one side it’s all right, but it’s not the right view of Latvians in Ireland. Maybe these people live like this, but lots of Latvians don’t . . . As a film it was great, but more suitable for Latvians than an Irish audience, because not everything was conveyed in the subtitles.
It did remind me of the Irish sentiments in London, as expressed in that song The Mountains of Mourne, when they went digging for gold.
TANJA
Slovenian living here six months
It’s a good overview about how this lower social class lives in Ireland, and how they cope. They’re in a vicious circle, so if they stay at home [in Latvia], they can’t survive, and then they come here and don’t [feel at home]. I don’t think it showed the typical life of immigrants in Ireland.
MICHELLE ROONEY
Irish
My views on the film were mixed, really. I wouldn’t have been aware of that [immigrant experience], and I work with migrants. The way the characters were represented was interesting: they were very much separated from Irish society.
