Ghosts, written and directed by maverick filmmaker Nick Broomfield, has a premiere screening at the Duke’s Theatre in Lancaster tonight.

But the film has been slammed for depicting Morecambe Bay fishermen as bullies who abused the itinerant Chinese cocklers.

That claim has been vehemently denied by fishermen from South Lakeland who say the film blurs fact with fiction.

According to the North-West Evening Mail, Morecambe’s MP Geraldine Smith was invited to the premiere of the film, but said local cocklers were portrayed as aggressive racists, who threatened the Chinese so much they would only go cockling at night.

Ben Barker, from Grange, is among those who say the movie gives the wrong impression about Morecambe Bay’s fishing fraternity.

Mr Barker said: “The regular Morecambe Bay cocklers are a very decent bunch of people really.

“I worked alongside the Chinese and I never saw anybody from within the Bay community abusing them. The Chinese were definitely not abused by English people.”

Lifelong Flookburgh fisherman Jack Manning agreed: “I was at Hest Bank where the Chinese were drowned and there was no physical or any sort of opposition to anybody that came from away. There was sometimes infighting amongst themselves. There was never any opposition from locals — it was from offcomers.”

Another Morecambe Bay cockler who has condemned the film is Margaret Owen who said people watching the film will believe the way it portrays the Chinese being abused by local cocklers as true.

Ghosts was chosen to be the opening film at the 2006 San Sebastian International Film Festival. It was also screened at the 50th London Film Festival.

It will be in competition at the Sundance Film Festival this month and will be screened at many other festivals throughout the year.

Twenty three Chinese illegal immigrants were drowned while picking cockles in Morecambe Bay three years ago next month. At Preston Crown Court in March, 2006, their gangmaster, Lin Liang Ren, was convicted of 21 counts of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years in jail.

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