Strikes, Camera, Action!
Ellen and Mark explore screen depictions of activism and the struggle for workers' rights.
Screenshot · BBC Radio 4
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Show Notes
Ahead of International Workers' Day, Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore how the struggle for workers' rights and other movements for change have been depicted on screen.
Ellen speaks to artist Jeremy Deller, who in 2001 restaged and filmed perhaps the most pivotal and violent event of the 1984/85 miners' strike - the confrontation between police and picketing miners in South Yorkshire, which has come to be known as the Battle of Orgreave. She also talks to cultural historian Christopher Frayling about some of the most interesting films about the labour movement to emerge in the UK, from The Proud Valley to It's All Right, Jack.
And Mark investigates how activism is depicted on screen in the present day, speaking to How To Blow Up A Pipeline director Daniel Goldhaber, and activist Megan Kapler, whose work with advocacy group Prescription Addiction Intervention Now was recently portrayed in documentary All The Beauty And The Bloodshed.
This week's Viewing Note comes from film director Lizzie Borden, who shares her favourite recent activist documentaries.
Producer: Jane Long A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4