Omar Alhaj Ali remembers how he and his brother, Mohammad, felt when they first arrived in the UK from Syria in 2014. \u201cWe were so happy to be safe\u201d, he says. \u201cWe knew that we were going to have a good life here\u201d. Mohammad, he says, was \u201ca very positive person. He wouldn’t complain about anything unless it was really major, and he always had positive thoughts about our future.\u201d Along with another brother, Hashem, Mohammed and Omar had fled Daraa, where civil war was unfolding, and arrived in England seeking asylum. Their family were thousands of miles away; they knew no one in the UK; and couldn\u2019t yet speak English. But they had each other to lean on. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe used to look the same as well,\u201d says Omar, of those days, when he and Mohammad had matching haircuts and beards. \u201cSome people would think I was Mohammad, and they would call him Omar.\u201d The pair eventually settled in west London, in a newly refurbished flat where they would listen to music, talk about home, and host their new friends. \u201cEven though it was a short time, we built a lot of memories,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
They would have had so much more time together, had things not been cut short in the most painful of circumstances. On 14 June 2017, a fire ripped through the tower block<\/a> where they lived in west London. That tower was Grenfell<\/a>, and the events of that night \u2013 which killed 72 people and changed the lives of survivors like Omar indelibly \u2013 made headlines across the world. The fire moved rapidly through the building due to the plastic-filled cladding<\/a> that had been added to its exterior, in part for aesthetic reasons. Meanwhile, the London Fire Brigade\u2019s \u201cstay put policy” meant that, by the time it was clear that an evacuation was necessary, it was too late for many of Grenfell\u2019s residents to escape. These included Mohammad, who became separated from Omar in the chaos and thick smoke. He would eventually jump to his death from a window. <\/p>\n Olaide Sadiq was on holiday when she first heard about what had happened. On a breaking news channel, in Thai, reports came in about a fire at a high-rise building. \u201cWe were like, London? That doesn\u2019t happen in London,\u201d she recalls. \u201cIt looked like something out of a film.\u201d Trying to find accurate information, she skipped through the channels, looking for BBC News. As a Black woman who grew up in a building similar to Grenfell \u2013 albeit in south rather than west London \u2013 she felt a connection to the story as soon as she had watched that first news report, and recalls the sombre feeling that engulfed her social circle when she returned to London. At the time, Sadiq was 24 and had just started her career in television. Eight years on, she is now the director of a damning and powerful new documentary about Grenfell, which centres the mixture of institutional failure from the fire brigade and local council; corporate greed; and political apathy that led to the single deadliest fire in the UK since the second world war.<\/p>\n Produced by UK indie outfit Rogan Productions, Grenfell: Uncovered is a Netflix<\/a> release, and has the sort of polish that usually characterises films on the platform. But it is also striking in its willingness to dig into the reasons why Grenfell happened. \u201cA lot of people I know just think it was a horrible accident, and they don\u2019t really know anything beyond that,\u201d says Sadiq. \u201cWe had an opportunity to put everything on the table, and then to make it into something that would be digestible for people\u201d. The film leaves viewers in no doubt that the companies that made the cladding used for the tower knew that it was unsafe. It also clarifies that it was the UK\u2019s lax building regulations and emphasis on cutting red tape that meant it was being used on a 24-storey building like Grenfell in the first place. Coupled with an inadequate response from the London Fire Brigade (although, as we see, many individual firefighters did all that they could on that night), it is clear that this was a catastrophic failure on all levels. <\/p>\n The film also touches on the prejudice that victims encountered, even before the fire. At one point, Marcio Gomes, who lived at Grenfell with his wife and children, recalls the tense relationship between residents and the TMO (tenant management organisation). \u201cWe were being treated as if we didn\u2019t matter,\u201d he says. Regardless of their occupation or background, the Grenfell residents, he says, were all labelled as \u201cworking class or poor\u201d. The sense of discrimination, sadly, continued after the fire, as Sadiq recalls observing keenly. As the film reminds us, the resident of the flat where the fire started, an Ethiopian man, was hounded so badly by the tabloids that he was offered witness protection by the police.<\/p>\n \u201cAs someone from a diverse background and as someone who has a lot of Muslim family members, I felt disappointed with the way some people in the country responded to Grenfell,\u201d Sadiq says. \u201cI feel like there\u2019s a responsibility in telling this story, [to talk about] classism, racism, Islamophobia. It\u2019s not just about those things, but they exist in the story\u201d. I felt a responsibility to give space to that, and for people to understand that, actually, you would be surprised by who\u2019s really involved in the Grenfell story\u201d.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Omar Alhaj Ali, who lost his brother in the fire (Netflix)<\/p>\n The public inquiry into the fire ended last September after seven years, and cost \u00a3200m. Its main findings were that failures in both the private sector and the government had caused the fire, and that there had been \u201csystematic dishonesty\u201d from the cladding and insulation manufacturers Arconic, Celotex and Kingspan. With the inquiry over, Sadiq says that it felt like the right time to work on a project of this scale, and the sheer might of Netflix helped too.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was an opportunity to really dig into what was new to say and what people might not know,\u201d says Sadiq. The idea, she says, was not to \u201cget loads of bereaved survivors in a chair to just unpack the worst night of their lives because, actually, that just feels like trauma farming. We wanted people to buy into the purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n Crucial to finding that purpose was Peter Apps, a housing journalist who has written more than 1,000 articles about Grenfell to date, as well as a book, Show Me The Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen. He was keen to be involved in the film, and to bring the story to a wider audience. Despite the inquiry into the fire and the resultant 1,700-page report, \u201cthere\u2019s something about a documentary that brings in a much bigger audience. I think that it\u2019s really important \u2013 if we\u2019re talking about justice and change \u2013 that people are aware of what happened and why.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s very callous whenever someone\u2019s aware that what they\u2019re doing might result in the loss of life<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Peter Apps, housing journalist<\/p>\n Apps served as an interviewee and also a research consultant, drawing on his work for the trade magazine Inside Housing. While the media at large naturally gravitated towards the human interest side of Grenfell, he spent many years writing for a different audience, who wanted to know more about the corporate side of things, and how materials that had been linked to other deadly fires abroad had ended up on Grenfell. \u201cThey [wanted] to know how to make sure this didn\u2019t happen again,\u201d says Apps. \u201cWho needs to be held to account? What is happening day to day at the inquiry?\u201d<\/p>\n The thing he found most chilling about it all, he says, is how people put profit ahead of other human lives. \u201cIt\u2019s very callous whenever someone\u2019s aware that what they\u2019re doing might result in the loss of life. Some of those emails [from company executives] are very, very clear that [the products in question] have a fire safety risk. I find that really scary, because it shows how fast we can slip into not caring about other people, and not seeing them as humans with lives worth protecting.\u201d At one point in the film, we see an email from the former head of the technical sales support team at Arconic, Claude Wehrle, who simply replies with the word \u201coops\u201d when confronted with evidence of just how flammable the company\u2019s cladding could be. (The president of Arconic\u2019s French arm, Claude Schmidt, denied that Wehrle was \u201cmaking light of the situation\u201d at the time; like many others involved in the story, Wehrle didn\u2019t provide comment to the documentary-makers.)<\/p>\n Apps\u2019s background lends itself perfectly to a documentary like Grenfell: Uncovered, which homes in on those manufacturers, to look at who knew what and when in forensic detail. Was it difficult to get insiders to go on the record? \u201cExtremely,\u201d says Sadiq. \u201cThe majority of people that we reached out to who used to work for the corporations chose not to speak to us. Some ignored us. Some said no. Some responded with stronger words\u2026\u201d Still, Sadiq and her team were able to secure interviews with the likes of Sara Sj\u00f6berg, a former employee of Arconic. Someone like Sj\u00f6berg, Sadiq says, \u201cwas obviously apprehensive\u201d, and there was a long gap between their first off-the-record chat and the interview that we see in the film. \u201cI think she said she needed the time to think about it. We needed to build a sense of trust as well with everybody, not just with someone like her.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Peter Apps is a housing journalist who has written more than 1,000 articles about Grenfell to date (Netflix)<\/p>\n The most recognisable interviewee here is former prime minister Theresa May<\/a>, who was running the country at the time of the fire. While she has previously said in print that her response to the fire wasn\u2019t good enough (she met with firefighters rather than residents in the aftermath), this appears to be the first time that she has admitted fault in a broadcast interview. Sadiq was amazed that May sat down with her in the end, and even more so when she heard what she had to say, not just about her own behaviour but the part that the Conservatives\u2019 war on housing regulation had played in the fire (in 2012, David Cameron declared<\/a> that his New Year\u2019s resolution was to \u201ckill off the health and safety culture for good\u201d).<\/p>\n \u201cIt was surprising to us how open she was about the role deregulation played in the Grenfell story, and how it wasn\u2019t always being looked at, maybe with the urgency or the seriousness that it should have been,\u201d Sadiq says. \u201cThat was really, really honest. I think a lot of people who have been involved in this process, or who have seen the film \u2013 whether they like her or not \u2013 appreciate that openness.\u201d<\/p>\n Crucially, the film also centres the victims and survivors. Among them, firefighters who had no idea how to tackle a blaze as ferocious as Grenfell, and families who didn\u2019t live in the tower, who are still trying to piece together what happened to their loved ones that night. For Omar, however, he knows the story all too well, and it\u2019s one that has left him desperately angry. While he says it\u2019s often difficult to open up about what happened, he found that he benefited from being part of the film. \u201cI just felt comfortable with [the documentary team],\u201d he says. \u201cThey are similar to me. They understand our situation. They understand our struggle. And they wanted to deliver this message. Sometimes when you do press, you feel like you’re kind of used, just to take the information from you. But I felt that I could actually open my heart to them.\u201d It was, he says, \u201clike speaking to my therapist\u201d.<\/p>\n Apps is clear about what he sees as justice for the bereaved and the survivors of Grenfell. \u201cJustice has to mean criminal liability,\u201d he says. He envisages a long fight still to play out, but also remains optimistic that something will come of the long-running police investigation, which began in 2017. Grenfell: Uncovered may well play its part, and you get the sense that it has the potential to put the disaster firmly back into the national conversation. \u201cI think this film can contribute,\u201d adds Apps. \u201cThe more people who know, and the more people who care, the more anger there will be if these organisations and individuals aren\u2019t held to account.\u201d<\/p>\n For Omar, it\u2019s about making sure that a tragedy like Grenfell is never repeated, and that the failures become widespread knowledge. It is also, of course, about honouring the people, like his brother, who perished. The film, he says, \u201cis about truth \u2013 our truth. It’s not just about the trauma, but it\u2019s about the resistance and remembrance. I don\u2019t want Mohammad and the others to be just a number.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Grenfell: Uncovered\u2019 arrives on Netflix on 20 June<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-199358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114714693270915186","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Omar](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Grenfell__Uncovered_n_00_27_59_02-copy.jpeg\")
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