Lai Ngan Walsh

Lai Ngan Walsh is a filmmaker who has worked in film and television production as a director, script consultant and sound recordist, and was nominated for her short film One Man’s Meat (1989, Chicago International Film Festival)).

For her 1986 film Who Takes the Rap ‑ Immigration, she worked in collaboration with the Woman and the Law Collective, who produced several films addressing racial and gender discrimination in British law. The film addresses how earlier histories of legal discrimination have continued to affect the status and opportunities of different immigrants to the UK. It Includes footage of strikes where workers fought back against racism, alongside interviews with those affected by the UK’s restrictive and racist law-making practices. The film is  overlaid with  Lai Ngan's commentary rap poem, performed by one of the first British women rappers, Lorna Gee. (AKA Sutara Gayle). 

Looking back on the film, Lai Ngan Walsh reflects that: ‘Unfortunately with the current political demonisation of immigrants, Who Takes The Rap has become even more relevant to immigrant groups in the UK.  I hope it's inclusion will give the general public a greater understanding of the historic laws that the present government's anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric build upon.’