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The struggles for justice by the families of people that have died in police custody. The silence over the police killings of Black people is now broken. Since 1969, over two thousand people have died at the hands of the police in the UK. Shootings, chokeholds, batons, gassing, suffocation, restraint and brutal beatings are some of the methods used. The numbers of deaths is escalating. Inevitably police officers involved are not convicted for these killings. In this documentary, the families of the victims of police violence demand justice. They ask why society ignores human rights abuses by agents of the state. This reflection on resistance is poignant and political, capturing the brutality and trauma as well as the unrelenting fightback of those who will not be silent about state violence.
Tickets: https://tickets.partyforthepeople.org/events/5562-bristol-radical-film-festival-2021
Running time: 1h, 15m
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BRFF 2021
The Bristol Radical Film Festival returns this October 23rd - 24th for its 10th year, celebrating political, activist, and experimental filmmaking. This year’s programme combines urgent contemporary political subjects with an eclectic mix of archive gems, including a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune with the rarely screened La Commune, and an urgent focus on Black deaths in police custody, Ultraviolence.
Ireland features prominently this year, screening both The 8th which focuses on the successful campaign to approve abortion, and The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid who successfully fought against the forced selling of his farm to make way for a new factory. Hidden struggles and stories of collective support feature in Caught, a film on how a community of trans Latina migrants in Queens, New York support and rely on each other. A session will use the short film The Felling of Colston as a starting point for a discussion on how Bristol should remember its historical links to slavery and deal with its present racial inequality.
On Sunday, The festival includes its popular shorts programme; Films from the Frontline publicising current political and social campaigns; this year highlighting job insecurity and the gig economy, and the protests against the construction of the HS2 railway among other issues.
The festival will end by going back to the beginning by celebrating the anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871 with a very rare screening in the UK of the complete version of Peter Watkinsʼ La Commune. Watkins is best known work for his 1966 film The War Game, a meticulously researched drama documentary into the devastating impact that a nuclear strike would have on the UK, made by the BBC, and subsequently banned by the UK government. La Commune, made in 2000, celebrates the moment in which the ordinary people of Paris seized power, introduced local elections, and formed an alternative government. In this work, Watkins revisits the events through a bold and exciting format whereby the events are covered live through the output of two local television stations; the establishment Versailles TV with its middle class experts and slick production, and the local activist run Commune TV station, which gives voice to the motivations and actions of the rebels.
The Bristol Radical Film Festival was set-up in 2011 to provide a platform for politically engaged, aesthetically innovative cinema, and is now part of The Radical Film Network, an international network of similar organisations involved in progressive, alternative film culture.
All session timings include a post-screening discussion.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Trinity Centre, Trinity Centre, Trinity Rd, Bristol, United Kingdom
Tickets