Mark Karlin Alan Miles the Berwick Street Collective A
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REVOLUTION 03 22 MARCH 2013, 6-9PM 23 MARCH 2013, 12-5PM VIVID PROJECTS MARK KARLIN A DREAM FROM THE BATH ALAN MILES WHO SHOT THE SHERIFF? THURSDAY 21 MAY, 6PM – 10PM THE BARBER INSTITUTE OF FINE ARTS THE BERWICK STREET COLLECTIVE NIGHTCLEANERS VIVID PROJECTS E: [email protected] 16 MINERVA WORKS W: WWW.VIVIDPROJECTS.ORG.UK 158 FAZELEY STREET TWITTER: VIVID_ BIRMINGHAM TUMBLR: VIVIDPROJECTS.TUMBLR.COM B5 5RS With special thanks to the Marc Karlin archive, In the Spirit of Marc Karlin (Holly Aylett, Hermione Harris and Andy Robson), LUX and Alan Miles. REVOLUTION 03 PROGRAMME: MARC KARLIN ALAN MILES Trevor Pitt opens the programme on Friday 22 A Dream From The Bath (1985) Who Shot The Sheriff? (2005) OH TO BE March, 6pm with a 1970s music set inspired by the 22mins | (colour, sound) 78 minutes | (colour, sound) Birmingham Arts Lab. The sounds of revolution Marc Karlin is an important but neglected figure Firefighter turned film maker Alan Miles’ and the use of actuality (photographic, audio and within the British film avant-garde of the 1970s, documentary tells the story of the Rock Against IN ENGLAND film) to reflect on society were critical concerns of 80s and 90s. He was a founding member of the film Racism (RAR) movement of the ’70s, when music the Arts Laboratory Sound Workshop and will be collective Cinema Action and the Berwick Street played a key part in mobilising opposition to racism 22 MARCH 2013, 6–9PM explored in an exhibition from 28-30 March. Film Collective, an active member of the film union and the National Front. 23 MARCH 2013, 12–5PM For Oh To Be In England, we have selected three ACTT and the Independent Filmmakers Association, Featuring rare archive footage from the punk and contrasting films that make a forceful comment and the Channel Four Campaign Group. He also co- RAR era – including the Clash, the Specials, Steel on our social experience through documentary founded the magazine of independent film, Vertigo, in Pulse, and Misty in Roots – the film draws on a sources, the domestic environment and the power 1993, which became the UK’s leading independent wealth of exclusive interviews with musicians and of collective action. film quarterly. activists associated with RAR to give testimony to Two of the films – ‘Nightcleaners’ and ‘Who Shot Following on from his work with the film collectives, the narrative of the rise of racism and the National The Sheriff?’– capture grassroots campaigns that he developed groundbreaking political films for Front in 70s Britain. The narrative unfolds through open up the socio-political issues that became central television, particularly BBC and C4 in the 80s and interviews with the leading artists and activists to society during that period. The third, ‘A Dream 90s combining documentary and fiction to explore who created RAR, many speaking for the first time From The Bath’, is a more personal reflection from themes of memory, history and political agency. about what happened - including Mick Jones, Jerry Marc Karlin, one of the four credited members of the We will examine Karlin’s films from this period in more Dammers, Neville Staples, Jimmy Pursey, Poly Berwick Street Collective who made Nightcleaners, depth later in 2013; here we present a film made for Styrene, Don Letts, Billy Bragg, and RAR founders and who went on to work on an extraordinary body the C4 strand, Visions, edited by John Ellis, in 1985. The Red Saunders and Roger Huddle. of films exploring urgent left wing politics, history commission was to respond to the patriotism of British As well as capturing the essence of a movement and memory. These three contrasting works invite Film Year; Karlin’s response to the topic was more which served as a political and musical education the viewer to consider the power of the camera and oblique. A Dream From The Bath is a meditative and for a generation, the film also links the struggle to the edit in framing and questioning the society we philosophical work on the cinematic image, its relation stop the National Front in the 1970s with anti- inhabit. to national mythologies and how it communicates with BNP campaigns from the last decade, such as the the audience. Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) movement, and THE BERWICK STREET COLLECTIVE Karlin’s work shares a reflection on media images and includes contemporary concert footage featuring the Nightcleaners Part 1 (1972-5) likes of Ms Dynamite, Pete Doherty, and Hard-Fi. 90 mins | 16mm and video (b&w, sound) their relationship to memory and our subjectivity with Chris Marker; and a strong poetic sensibility is evident Director Alan Miles has been making films for Nightcleaners is a documentary made by members in the domestic tableaux of Karlin’s home environment the trade union and labour movement since the of the Berwick Street Collective (Marc Karlin, around which the camera restlessly tracks. firefighters’ strike in 2002 (when Joe Strummer Mary Kelly, James Scott and Humphrey Trevelyan) played a benefit gig for striking firefighters). Who Oh To Be In England is a bricolage about the campaign to unionise the victimized and Excerpt from script, ‘A Dream From The Bath’: Shot The Sheriff? was supported by the Amicus of film, print, and song exploring underpaid women who cleaned office blocks at night. Trade Union. the anarchic spirit of 60s and 70s At the outset the intention was to make a campaign “It was precisely because England was so small that Britain; from post ‘68 revolutionary film; but the relatively conventional documentary the cinema had to enlarge it – rather than sentencing images to years of national servitude….He wanted fervour to the counter-cultural arts style was heavily deconstructed through an extremely long editing process. Our observation of to defeat above all, those demands for a national lab movement and Rock Against the women is interrupted through rhythmic insertions cinema. He wanted to restore privacy.” Racism. It is the third revolution of black leader, or by slowing down, reworking and presented as part of 33 Revolutions, magnifying close-up footage. An open text, the film is an eight month programme that asks rightly cited as “a landmark work of British political cinema and of collective and feminist film making” the question, can art and culture be (Annette Kuhn). It has recently been taken up by the a catalyst for social change? Occupy movement with screenings in London..