Kimalia

Asylum claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity have been recognised in the UK since 1999. However, having the right to seek refugee status, and actually gaining asylum on this basis, have proved to be two very different things.

Kimalia pitches Ade, a Kimali refugee, against Vincent, the North-Phalian border guard with a prejudice.

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Written originally for a cast of nineteen Mountview graduating students, this contemporary tale exposes the endemic corruption and prejudice at the heart of the Home Office’s immigration strategy, and aims to question our attitudes to race, gender and nationality.

The play forces us to ask ourselves how we’d feel without the protection of law, society, and all the comforts and rights we take for granted. And we ask what we’re prepared to sacrifice for freedom.

 

Kimalia was produced at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre by Mountview in 2013. It was subsequently produced in Leipzig in 2018.