TalkFilm screening
Wed 4 March 2026 – Thu 19 March 2026
LONG TAKE: Workers Film a Century Apart
LONG TAKE is a series of three screenings at Four Corners, LUX and MayDay Rooms, which brings together films by the 1930s Workers’ Film & Photo League with contemporary activist films to explore themes of housing, empire and work.
Screening 1 Tenants in Revolt
Wednesday 4 March, 6.30-8.30pm, Four Corners. BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE
British Film Unit, 1939, 21 mins
Tenants in Revolt captures the activities of the 1930s Stepney Tenants' Defence League, who organised in response to rising rents and slum-like conditions in East London. Documentation of rent strikes is accompanied by commentary from campaign organisers Maurice 'Tubby' Rosen and Clara Garrett, who led the tenants' committee of the Flower & Dean Street tenement protests.
We’re Still Here
Melissa Herman, 2021, 68 mins
London's housing is under attack. As developers - hand in glove with local councils - demolish necessary public housing to replace it with unaffordable apartments, more people are now standing up for their rightful place in their city. Filmed over four years, We're Still Here covers the protests of Focus E15 families, keyworkers in West Ham, and the Grenwell Tower fire residents.
Discussion with historian Mike Berlin, community organiser and documentary filmmaker Melissa Herman, housing activists Truus Jansen and Aysen Dennis, artist and researcher Matthias Kispert, and artist filmmaker and lecturer Samuel Stevens.
Screening 2 Come on Pilgrim
Saturday 14 March, 2-4pm, LUX. BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE
Film & Photo League, 1937, 11 mins
In 1937, members of the Film & Photo League lined the route of London's May Day procession, armed with cameras with their mottos 'Show Workers’ Films' and 'Make Workers’ Films'. The procession was organised by the Communist Party of Great Britain and other left-wing groups.
Film & Photo League, 1937, 15 mins
The 1937 coronation of King George VI coincided with London busmen striking for a seven and a half hour working day. This film captures the patriotic fervour of the celebrations juxtaposed with scenes of military destruction and urban poverty. This ambitious production survives incomplete, but its experimental approach resonates with films like Vigo’s A Propo De Nice (1930) and Stork’s Histoire du Soldat inconnu (1931).
Come on Pilgrim
Mars Saude, 2022, 27 mins
A series of visual field recordings and staged interventions captured on expired film, Come On Pilgrim draws on the filmmaker's experience of living in a flat overlooking the Mayflower steps in Plymouth. This location serves as a jumping-off point to interrogate histories of settler-colonialism, identity, and mythos in the surrounding landscape, from the viewpoint of a recent immigrant.
Alberta Whittle, 2022, 43 mins
This film discusses theories of abolition, rebellion, ancestral knowledge and love. Shot in Scotland, London and Barbados, it focuses on the strength of contemporary Black womxn, whose acts of resistance are bound together through conceptual storytelling. It calls for radical change in Western society, where racist, imperialist agendas permeate through a culture of systemic institutional racism. The film's title refers to Sheku Bayoh, who lost his life in Scotland while in police custody.
Discussion with moving image artist Mars Saude, artist and researcher Matthias Kispert, and artist filmmaker and lecturer Samuel Stevens.
Screening 3 United Voices
Thursday 19 March, 6.30-8.30pm, MayDay Rooms. BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE
Film & Photo League, 1937, 26 mins
Filmed in 1935 on 16mm and originally titled ‘Fight', this attempts to put authentic working class lives on screen in a fictionalised drama produced by workers themselves. The film echoes constructivist devices in its use of close-ups, jaunty angles and distinctive montage sequences, but it is the use of real-life locations and non-professional actors that appear most modern today.
Film & Photo League, 1935, 10 mins
The Workers’ Film & Photo League manifesto insists that 'the time has come for workers to produce films and photos of their own', and the opening credit declares that the film was 'made by the men on the job'. Shot by carpenter and amateur filmmaker, Alf Garrard, with a concealed camera, the ingenious shooting style results in imaginative angles with a not infrequent lack of focus.
Hazel Falck, 2020, 22 mins
This film follows a group of outsourced cleaners, caterers and porters at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, employed by Sodexo, as they organise and embark on their first strike action. They are led by Loreta Younsi and Vitalija Mohamed Mohsen to demand and try to win the London Living Wage, contractual sick pay, safer working conditions, and equality with NHS staff.
IWGB Union, 2023, 19 mins
The Independent Workers’ union of Great Britain is a grassroots member-led union fighting for justice for workers. Founded 2012 by Latin American cleaners organising for better working conditions, it has grown to thousands of members. This film takes a look back at its history, the achievements of its members and its vision for the future.
Reel News, 2026, 15 mins
The Birmingham binworkers have been out on strike for over a year fighting a life-changing £8,000 a year cut in their pay – disgracefully, by a Labour council. As the council grows increasingly isolated and unpopular, this dispute is being watched closely by other councils across the country... If the binworkers win it could be the start of a serious push for more funding for our cash-starved public services.
Discussion with members of the IWGB, video activist Shaun Dey, Rosemary Grennan, MayDay Rooms, artist and researcher Matthias Kispert, and artist filmmaker and lecturer Samuel Stevens.