'No Release: Immigration, location control and tracking' with Monish Bhatia
This event has now finished.
Digital Cinema, School of Arts and Creative Technologies East, Campus East, University of York (Map)
Event details
No Release tells the story of two migrant men who, after their release from prison, face a new form of punishment: continuous GPS surveillance enforced by the UK immigration system.
The film explores the long-term effects of state control on the body, mind, and identity — from mandatory sign-ins, curfews, and exclusions to the psychological strain of indefinite monitoring. It exposes how deportability, stigma, and fear erode dignity and perpetuate a cycle of punishment without end.
No Release stands in solidarity with those targeted by intersecting systems of immigration control and criminal justice. It highlights how poverty, displacement, lack of citizenship, and the gendered and racialised construction of “risk” compound the punitive treatment of migrants. The film lays bare the machinery of surveillance and exclusion that inflicts suffering and makes rebuilding one’s life nearly impossible.
Produced by BÉZNĂ Theatre, an international political theatre company known for work confronting social violence, No Release was written and directed by Sînziana Cojocărescu.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Dr Monish Bhatia.
This event, organised by the Gender, Sexuality and Inequalities Research Cluster.
About the speaker
Dr Monish Bhatia
Monish Bhatia is a sociologist/critical criminologist working in the areas of migration, state, racism and violence. In particular, he is interested in the rapid convergence of the criminal-legal and immigration arenas, the use of surveillance and crime control technologies in migration, and its impact on various migrant groups.