No Release

After their release from prison, two migrant men are confronted with a new form of punishment: constant surveillance through GPS ankle monitors, imposed by the UK immigration system. The film is an adaptation of research and interviews conducted by Dr Monish Bhatia as part of the project Immigration, location tracking and control, funded by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship.

No Release uncovers the long-term impacts of state control on the body, mind, and identity — from mandatory sign-ins, curfews and exclusions, to the psychological toll of being on a tag, subjected to 24/7 monitoring with no upper limit on time, and treated like a criminal long after the sentence has been served. The film also exposes the enduring fear of deportation, the erosion of dignity, and the violence of a system that punishes without end.

The film is an act of solidarity with those targeted by intersecting systems of immigration control and criminal justice, revealing how poverty, displacement, and lack of citizenship, along with gender and racialisation of risk, add to the bitterly punitive treatment of migrants. No Release lays bare the machinery of surveillance and exclusion that inflicts suffering and makes rebuilding life nearly impossible.