Name: On Allotments – Growing, Community, Filmmaking
Start: 2025-03-13T18:30:00+00:00
End: 2025-03-13T21:30:00+00:00
Location: St Margaret’s House Chapel, Bethnal Green

$On Allotments \u2013 Growing, Community, Filmmaking$

Film screening and discussion organised by Dr Hollie Price and Four Corners
About this Event

Films of Resistance: Experimental Community Cinema in Bethnal Green

Join Four Corners and Dr Hollie Price from Keele University in St Margaret’s House Chapel for the second in a series of screenings and conversations exploring the radical history of filmmaking on Roman Road.

In the 1970s and 80s, filmmakers cooperative Four Corners created experimental films whilst running a community cinema and film workshops from their premises – a former grocer’s shop on Roman Road.

These events are inspired by some of the issues addressed in Four Corners' early projects, including women's lives, allotment spaces, experiences of migration, and youth culture. They will explore these themes in dialogue with the present-day and reflect on how they continue to resonate with people living in Tower Hamlets and neighbouring boroughs today.

On Allotments – Growing, Community, Filmmaking

We will be screening On Allotments (Four Corners, 1975), an experimental documentary about an allotment site in Newham. With a vivid, poetic visual style, On Allotments both carefully depicts the natural landscape of the site and the allotment-holders’ routines, rituals and time off spent there – and nods to the threat of the planned construction of an international lorry park to the allotment landscape and its community.

On Allotments will be shown with This Was Forever (2007), a documentary about the Manor Gardens allotments in Hackney Wick and the struggle to prevent their closure in line with the 2012 Olympics redevelopment plans, and Time to Grow (2024), a short film about a community growing project in Walthamstow and Hackney.

The films will be followed by a conversation with filmmakers Mark Aitken and Madeleine Hartley Salim, chaired by Iram Quraishi (Programme Director of Loop Labs, who recently led ‘Up the Allotments!’ as part of Newham Heritage Month) and close with a drinks reception.

Further information

2025 marks Four Corners' 50th anniversary. You can explore our early history at Four Corners Archive and find out more about our work today here.

This series of events is part of the ‘Four Corners Film Workshop: Independent Filmmaking and Exhibition in East London, 1975-90’ research project led by Dr Hollie Price at Keele University in partnership with Four Corners, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.