Havana Glasgow Film Festival

A reminder that the Havana Glasgow Film Festival runs from today until Sunday 12 November.


The festival has a great selection of films and UNISON is associated with the screening of From Ghost Town to Havana at 7.15pm at the CCA, Glasgow, on Friday 10 November. Ghost Town to Havana is a heartbreaking, funny, and inspirational story about mentorship, life, love, murder, kids and baseball in Oakland and Havana today.


The full programme is here and on the HGFF website.


Of course, our thoughts are with Doreen Kean and the family of our friend, comrade and former UNISON Communications Officer Chris Bartter as the festival he helped promote gets under way.

This image dedicated to Chris Bartter will be displayed before the screening of From Ghost Town to Havana.

Chris said recently of the film: "I've seen the film now and it was great. It is both human and very political (without being overtly partisan). The director, unusually, is a key figure within the film - being the son of a baseball coach himself."

Take One Action - get to GFT for UNISON sponsored film Salt of the Earth!

SALT OF THE EARTH (USA 1954) - GFT Thu 2 October at 6pm
Screening and audience discussion - with Cath Cunningham - Fife miners' strike women's support activist

The Take One Action Film Festival is on now and has some fantastic films. UNISON Scotland has sponsored four of the screenings - our last one is on Thursday 2 October at Glasgow Film Theatre

Banned for a decade in the US, SALT OF THE EARTH is a pioneering agitprop drama tracing the story a mine-workers’ strike against so-called “austerity measures".

When a debilitating accident befalls a New Mexican zinc miner as a result of safety cutbacks, Mexican and US miners alike decide to withdraw their labour. But it is only when the workers’ wives get involved – bringing a moving and lyrical definition to solidarity – that the balance of power painfully starts to shift.

Featuring mainly real-life miners and their families, Salt of the Earth remains a fresh and rousing call for on-going non-violent resistance in the face of consumer and corporate exploitation.

 

More info here: http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/international/takeoneaction.html

or at the Take One Action website http://www.takeoneaction.org.uk/

Dates confirmed for Happy Lands film

It’s the General Strike 1926 - Only seven years after the slaughter of the trenches, millions of workers across the country down tools to take part in the biggest walk out in British history, taking a stand against savage austerity cuts imposed by a Liberal-Conservative government.

Robert Rae’s epic, sweeping portrait of a definitive moment in the history of social justice charts the lives of three Scottish families as they deal with questions of loyalty, honour, love and trust in the midst of the Strike.

Created with over 1000 members of the Fife community, this moving story of the hardship faced by the miners is ultimately a celebration of the indomitable human spirit, which will resonate around the globe.

A game changing work that casts the people of the Fife Coalfield Communities at the heart of their own story and told it in their own voices and imprint it permanently on film. Theatre Workshop Scotland created an enduring social and artistic legacy that gave many participants what they have described as “the time of their lives”.

Scottish dates are now confirmed:
Glasgow Film Theatre - 17 February
Clydebank Empire - 18 February
Blantyre Miners’ Welfare - 1 March
Penicuik Cinema - 3 March
Eden Court Theatre, Inverness - 10 March
Adam Smith Theatre, Kirkcaldy - 10 March
Loganlea Miners’ Welfare - 18 March
Colinsburgh Community Cinema - 26 April

If you’ve got friends, family, workmates in these communities please spread the word and encourage them to attend. If you’ve got access to trade union or other email lists, please publicise the film via those routes.

See the first public review in the Sunday Mail http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/movies/movie-news/relatives-pay-tribute-to-mining-heroes-1572327  and a hard hitting editorial at http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/mail-opinion-have-we-really-left-the-days-1572328
See background on the making of the film and interviews with UNISON members in the cast at http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/happylands/

New film tells important story of Skye Bridge anti-toll protests

28 Dec 2012 

The successful campaign against tolls on the Skye Bridge is the subject of a BBC Alba film to be broadcast on New Year’s Day.

The media co-op film ‘An Drochaid/The Bridge Rising’ highlights once again the extortionate rip-off of the Private Finance Initiative – the Skye Bridge being the first UK PFI project.

Former Dingwall Procurator Fiscal David Hingston, who prosecuted the protesters who refused to pay tolls, is interviewed, saying: “PFI, in my personal opinion, is a fraud upon the public. It’s an abuse of government. The bridge should have been paid for out of public funds.”

Media co-op describes the documentary as an “epic, feel-good story of a modern rebellion” that is also a “bittersweet tale of passion, ego, and financial skulduggery.” They cite figures showing the total £25m of private investment cost taxpayers and road-users more than £74m.

It features almost all the key players including Skye and Kyle Against Tolls (SKAT) protesters, politicians, the bridge engineer, police and PF. However, Bank of America, the bridge owners before the 2004 buy-out by the then Scottish Executive, declined to take part. 

Producer Louise Scott said the film tells of “a successful uprising of a community against a bank, a rebellion against the idea of making private profit from public works.” A cinema length version is to follow.

Mischief making, the fun of days in court (“like going to the Shinty Cup final”) and a march across the bridge with beer barrels of ‘Extortion Ale’, are interspersed with recollections from some of the well known SKAT characters, including Robbie the Pict and former NUPE (UNISON’s predecessor union) official Andy Anderson, along with politicians such as former Scottish Office minister Lord James Douglas Hamilton, former Labour minister Brian Wilson and the former Liberal Democrat MSP John Farquhar Munro.

And it reveals that former Skye police sergeant Dennis Hyndman - who arrested his neighbours when they refused to pay the toll - was a secret supporter of the anti-toll campaign. “If I hadn't been a police officer I would have been down there protesting along with the rest of them."

The film will be shown on BBC Alba at 8.05pm on Tuesday 1 January 2013, repeated on Sunday 6 January at 8.30pm. Short trailer here Read more in reports in The Herald and Third Force News.

UNISON Scotland reports on PFI and PPP projects, including the Skye Bridge, are here.

.

Acclaimed Spanish film Even the Rain to be shown in Lanarkshire - Sat 15 Sep

An acclaimed Spanish film is the focus of an event to promote discussion around social and economic justice in Lanarkshire.

 

Take One Action Film Festivals and UNISON South Lanarkshire Present EVEN THE RAIN, a free community screening at the Blantyre Miners Welfare Community Cinema on Saturday 15^th September at 6.45pm.

The event seeks to use the dramatic events depicted in the film to highlight themes relevant to Scotland today. Stephen Smellie of UNISON explained,

“The movie is, first of all, a great film and anyone who likes good films will have a great night out. We are pleased to be able to use the Community Cinema provided by the Miner’s Welfare whose purpose is to provide entertainment at a reasonable cost for local people.

However the film also provokes thought about issues such as who has the right to control a nation’s resources? Should water supply be controlled for profit? Can working people resist big companies, bankers and governments in order to take greater control over their lives?

Scotland’s public water supply is seen by some as an opportunity to make money for a few rather than as an essential resource for us all. The fight to keep our water in public hands is ongoing.” 

Nominated for 13 goyas (Spain's Oscars), Iciar Bollain’s dramatic rollercoaster penned by Take One Action patron Paul Laverty (Looking for Eric) stars Gael García Bernal as Sebastian, a filmmaker caught up in Bolivia's mass protests of spring 2000 against the government’s decision to privatise the national water company. As Sebastian vainly tries to tell the story of Columbus' colonisation of the new world, his cast and crew get drawn into a contemporary version of events, blurring the boundaries between past and present, fiction and reality. In fact, the cost of water in Bolivia had gone up by three hundred per cent. But although Bollain’s story is finally one of the triumph of the people, the privatisation of basic public services remains at the centre of a powerful debate about poverty and development across the globe.

There will be a post-film discussion with Stephen Smellie from UNISON Scotland, Mark Langdon, Chairman of GMAC (Glasgow Media Access Centre) and other guests.

In addition the acclaimed Edinburgh-based Valentina and Voces del Sur will be playing songs of exile, love and social change, inspired by tango and folk music traditions from Latin America.

Tickets are free and can be reserved by contacting South Lanarkshire UNISON at unison@southlanarkshire.gov.uk  or phone 01698454690.

END

For further information regarding the Blantyre event contact Stephen Smellie on 01698 454690 or 077 400 96864.

For more information regarding the Take One Action and Even The Rain contact Emma Pattinson on 0131 553 6335 or 0780 582 7888

 .

Films of the UCS Work-in Mitchell Theatre, Glasgow 21-23 March 2012

Films of the UCS Work-in
Mitchell Theatre, Glasgow 21-23 March 2012Tickets from www.glasgowconcerthalls.com
See flyer here: http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/ucs/UCSfilmflyerMarch2012.pdf




Wednesday 21 March, 1.00pm
Films: UCS 1 and UCS: 40th Anniversary
Panel: Ann Guedes, Susan Morrison, Dr Chik Collins. Tickets £5
http://www.glasgowconcerthalls.com/whatson/event/119346-UCS-Screenings-UCS1-and-UCS-40th-Anniversary

Thursday 22 March 7.30pm
Films: UCS 1 and UCS: 40th Anniversary
Panel: Ann Guedes, Mike Kirby (STUC President), Pat Rafferty (UNITE). Tickets £6
http://www.glasgowconcerthalls.com/whatson/event/119347-UCS-Screenings-UCS1-and-UCS-40th-Anniversary

Friday 23 March 7.30pm
Film: Class Struggle: Film from the Clyde
Panel: Ann Guedes, David Hayman. Tickets £7.50
http://www.glasgowconcerthalls.com/whatson/event/119348-UCS-Screenings-Class-Struggle:-Film-from-the-Clyde

After each showing the films will be followed by a Q&A with special guest, film-maker, Ann
Guedes, plus an invited panel.

Ann GuedesIndependent cinema in Britain is unthinkable without the achievements of the innovative film collective
Cinema Action, which was set up in the late 1960s and crystallised around a core of three cultural dynamos: Ann Guedes, Gustav Lamche and Eduardo Guedes.

Ann has made 15 documentary films, many with International Film Festival Awards, Berlin, London, Madrid, Portugal, Leipzig and the jury prize at Moscow Film Festival. Her 90-minute feature documentary So That You Can Live was selected for the opening day of Channel 4.

Ann’s feature films include:
Rocinante (1986), starring John Hurt and Ian Dury, which won 6 international
film awards;
Bearskin (1989), starring Tom Waits and Ian Dury; and
Talk of Angels (1998).


The films
UCS 1In 1971 Cinema Action was the only film crew given permission by the Joint Shop Stewards Committee to film the early part of the Work-in. UCS1 contains interviews with UCS workers explaining the rationale behind the Work-in and the strategy deployed by the shop stewards to secure the future of the yards. The film is a unique depiction of how the workers gained support from the wider community and took their fight, quite literally, to the doorstep of the Heath government.
Running time 23mins.

UCS 40th AnniversaryA short film produced for the 40th anniversary celebrations by the STUC’s Kevin Buchanan. First shown at the UCS Gala concert on 1 October 2011, the film charts the story of the Work-in using archive footage and images. With a script by John Foster and voice over by David Hayman.
Running time 12mins.

Class Struggle: Film from the ClydeHalfway through this documentary study of the work-in at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in 1971, one of the workers says, ‘This is a group of workers who are not going to grovel, tugging their forelocks, to the labour exchange’. Such clarity of expression and considered determination to participate in the political process powerfully highlights the fight of workers ‘to keep what is in the long term keepable’. The uniqueness of Class Struggle is about more than Cinema Action being the only group allowed to film inside the yards. The mainstream media news crews seem interested in the yards only as backdrops for interviewing ‘key players’. Cinema Action emphasised the action of workers and shop stewards who found running the yards, in one’s opinion, “easier than working the double bottom of a ship”.
Running time 83mins.



.