Blog: Small Boats: The Border Conundrum
Post screening discussion with the films director Nick Lazar and producer Dr Anne Daguerre.

On 24 October 2025, Anne Daguerre and Nick Lazar presented their documentary Small Boats: The Border Conundrum to an audience of students and academics at Birkbeck, University of London. The screening was followed by a rich and lively Q&A chaired by Dr Eleni Liarou, with the event coordinated by BIMI (Dr Janet McCabe and Dr Matthew Barrington).

Nick, a graduate of Birkbeck’s Screenwriting MA (2024), directed, shot, and edited the film, with Anne as producer and interviewer. Supported by seed funding from the University of Brighton, the project grew out of Nick’s narrative screenplay about a small-boat refugee and Anne’s frustration at how British media and politicians—particularly on the right—regularly blame France for failing to “stop the boats,” despite the UK having paid France millions in bilateral agreements. This prompted Anne to explore what was really happening on the other side of the Channel, and why French perspectives are so often sidelined in a debate dominated by the British view.

The film avoids spectacle. Instead, it foregrounds human stories, operational realities, and systemic tensions, resisting easy simplifications. It asks: What actually happens at the UK–France border? What are the day-to-day realities behind the policies, headlines, and political rhetoric?

One of the interviewees featured in the film, RNLI volunteer George Michael Kakas, joined the post-screening discussion. Asked whether he had encountered many small-boat arrivals in Brighton, he recalled just one: an Iranian man and his dog. He also described far more volatile experiences in the Mediterranean, including a Libyan coastguard firing on a rescue mission in international waters. For most of the refugees he has encountered, he emphasised, the destination isn’t specifically the UK—it’s Western Europe, somewhere safe.

Audience questions were sharp and wide-ranging: Why does Spain appear more welcoming than the UK? Are asylum seekers really treated better here than in France? Is Brexit responsible for the rise in small-boat crossings? (Anne: not really.) Dr Liarou raised a central question: whose economic interests are served by this border regime? She pointed to the vast sums channelled into private security contracts. Anne referenced ongoing ESRC-funded research by Lucy Mayblin (University of Sheffield), which maps these opaque networks of border cooperation and spending.

Nick spoke about wanting to make a film that approached the subject from a fresh angle and avoided clichés. He cited filmmaker Julien Goudichaud, featured in the documentary, as an example of someone who centres migrant voices without sensationalising them.

We hope to bring Small Boats to other universities soon. In a climate where institutions are under pressure to demonstrate their value, projects like this illustrates how universities can meaningfully contribute to complex and polarised public debates.

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