About this Event
LONG TAKE is a series of three screenings at Four Corners, LUX and MayDay Rooms in March 2026. It brings together films by the 1930s Workers’ Film & Photo League and contemporary activist films to explore themes of housing, empire and work.
Screening 3 United Voices
Thursday 19 March, 6.30-8.30pm, MayDay Rooms.
Strife
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.
Construction
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.
United Voices
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.
10 Years of IWGB
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.
Birmingham binworkers strike
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.
Biographies
Matthias Kispert is an artist, researcher and educator with an interest in the intersections of art, politics and activism. His practice-based PhD uses artistic research methods to investigate precarious forms of work distributed through digital platforms, also known as the ‘gig economy’. He is a founding editor of , is coordinating the Committee on Activism for the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE), and teaches at the University of the Arts London and the University of Westminster.
Samuel Stevens is an artist filmmaker, curator and Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster. He led the community filmmaking East End Stories: Workers Newsreel Project (2024), and co-curated the exhibition Now Filming Art Documentary and Resistance in 1930s East London (2025), with Four Corners. Stevens’ work received an Arts Foundation Fellowship Award (2017), for Essay Film, and has participated in exhibitions in Madrid, Dublin, London, Oxford and Taipei.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
MayDay Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London, United Kingdom
GBP 3.00 to GBP 6.00
