My article on culture, class and identity politics originally published by the Shiela McKechnie Foundation, has been picked up by a new website and online network Visionary, which aims to be a catalyst for social change, inspiring communities via art, media and entertainment. Take a look here
The Tolpuddle Radical Film Festival started in 2014 and to celebrate our 5th year we are introducing a second venue and an exciting new programme.
The Children and Young People’s Programme will present films aimed at children and young people that celebrate liberty, equality and diversity. We will show a selection of entertaining feature films and exciting new offerings from our competition programme.
We are awarding two new prizes in the Small Axe competition: The best film for a young audience made by someone over 18 and the best film made by someone under 18
Rebel Girl’s
2018 marks the 100th anniversary of British women gaining the right to vote and the theme of this year’s main Tolpuddle film festival is ‘The 51%’. All films in our main festival this year are made by women, feature female protagonists and are made in the spirit of liberation.
The theme of our inaugural Children & Young People’s Programme is ‘Rebel Girls’, partly inspired by Elena Favilli’s hugely successful books, Good Night Stories For Rebel Girls. All the films feature strong, young female protagonists who are each in their own way striving for liberation.
FILMS
This year the films include a core schedule of popular mainstream feature films interspersed with the latest lesser-known short films from across the globe. Our features in the programme are:
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) PG-13 – I hr 52 mins
Whale Rider (2002) PG-13 – 1 hr 41 mins
The Breadwinner (2017) PG-13 – 1 hr 34 mins
Matilda (1996) PG – 1hr 42 mins
My Neighbour Totoro (1988) G – 1 hr 26 mins
Persepolis (2007) PG 13 – 1hr 36 mins
The 51%
2018 marks the 100th anniversary of British women gaining the right to vote. According to the Office For National Statistics 51% of the UK population are women. Since 1975 it has been illegal to discriminate on the grounds of sex or marital status. Yet the fall out from the BBC pay gap scandal, the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the ongoing violence and harassment of women on social media and the internet has made it clear that the struggle for the equal rights of women is far from over.
The criteria for the films this year are that they are all made by women, feature female protagonists and are made in the spirit of liberation.
The films this year will include: She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, Sisters in Law, La Souriante Madame Beudet, Suffragette, Frida, Ballad for Syria, Real Women Have Curves and Bambule.
We are delighted to publish the programme for the 4th Tolpuddle Radical Film Festival.
In light of the Grenfell Tower disaster we have modified our theme and our now showing 2 UK films about the UK housing crisis.
We are also delighted that the bulk of our programme this year is made up of UK films and UK films released in 2017!
Judging of the Small Axe Short Film competition is approaching completion. WE seem to be making a mark here too as this year we received over 1000 entries from across the globe!
Special thanks to The Magnificent Seven Sponsors:
GFTU
USDAW Southern Division
UCU
UNITE North West
Tolpuddle UNITE
Midlands TUC
SWTUC
And to all our other sponsors:
Bath TUC
Unison Power Branch
Bakers Union
Rachel Jury
Chris Van Spal
Unison Bolton
SERTUC
North Staffs Trade Council
Bridgewater Trades Council
White Horse TUC
Footprint Workers Coop
Unison Dorset
Warwickshire NUT
UNITE Amicus Barrow 0401
UNITE Amicus 0754
UNITE Amicus Bolton & District
NW/T60
UNITE N/W Bamber Bridge & Leyland
UNITE Wirral Branch
As co-founder and programmer of the Tolpuddle Radical Film Festival, I am delighted to announce that in 2017 The Tolpuddle Radical Film Festival is hosting the Radical Film Network conference at the Tolpuddle Martyr’s Festival from 14.00 on Thursday 13th – 14.00 on Saturday 15th July.
Registration for the event is currently open and tickets can be booked here.
RFN @Tolpuddle 2017 tickets cost £68 and include entry to the Tolpuddle Festival and the Tolpuddle Radical Film Festival. Details can be found here.
A great summer festival experience for all the family and a unifying gathering for over 4,000 trade unionists, cultural activists and political artists from across the UK and the globe.
We warmly invite all members of the RFN to join us at Tolpuddle 2017!
Please feel free to share widely with your networks.
Looking forward to seeing you in the Vintage Mobile Cinema bus and on the festival field!
http://www.tolpuddleradicalfilm.org.uk/rfn-tolpuddle
As co-founder of the Tolpuddle Radical Film Festival and Producer of the GFTU Liberating Arts Festival, I will be speaking at the Laborfest screening of I Daniel Blake in San Francisco on 19th July.
LaborFest was established in 1994 to institutionalize the history and culture of working people in an annual labor cultural, film and arts festival. It begins every July 5th, which is the anniversary of the 1934 “Bloody Thursday” event. On that day, two workers Howard Sperry and Nick Bordoise were shot and killed in San Francisco. They were supporting the longshoremen and maritime workers strike. This incident brought about the San Francisco General Strike which shut down the entire city and led to hundreds of thousands of workers joining the trade union movement.
Laborfest supports the establishment of such festivals around the USA and internationally. There are now LaborFests in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, every December. Laborfests have also taken place in Buenos Aires, Argentina and El Alto, Bolivia. In April of this year, the first LaborFest in Capetown, South Africa took place. In May, there were LaborFests in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey. The need to build local, national and international solidarity is critical, if labor is going to face the challenges it faces on all fronts. LaborFests help bring our struggles together in art, film and music.
My newly formed Community Interest Company Public Domain Arts & Media has been commissioned by UNITE N. West and UNITE In Schools to develop a pilot scheme exploring a new approach to educating children about trade unions.
The project uses role-playing techniques inspired by Augustus Boal and Paulo Friere to create an innovative educational initiative designed to give 14-24-year olds, a creative and participatory introduction to trade unionism and collective action in the work place.
This project is about allowing young people to experience ‘light-bulb’ moments of understanding about the possibility of resisting exploitation in the work place and through that an understanding of the wider collective struggle for freedom, equality and economic justice.
Above all this project is about inspiring the union members, activists, reps and shop stewards of the future!
I’m delighted to say I’ve been hired to produce the LIberating Arts Festival for the General Federation of Trade Unions.
Liberating Arts is a unique arts festival and conference instigated by the General Federation of Trade Unions to connect the labour and trade union movement with cultural workers, academics and creative activists, and to promote the crucial importance of cultural work in achieving progressive political, economic and social objectives.
The Festival will run from 12.00 on Friday 3rd November until 17.30 on Sunday 5th November at the Roborough Studios, University Of Exeter. Further details and booking here
I’m delighted to be working with my little sister, Rachel Jury, on her participatory musical project, The Gates.
Rachel’s company, ConFab, based in Glasgow, is one of the leading participatory arts companies in Scotland. She creates participatory theatre to the highest standards by using key professional cast and crew to nurture and guide large casts of community enthusiasts.
The Gates is a large-scale participatory theatre project for the LGBT community that has been performed very successfully in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The project was inspired by the story of, The Gateway, a gay club that opened in 1931 in the basement of a shop on the Kings Road in London. For 50 years ‘The Gates’ provided a secret safe-haven for the LGBT community until its closure in 1985.
In 2018 ConFab is hoping to bring the project to Manchester, Brighton and London and I’m working with Rachel as a Producer to help set that tour up. So keep your eyes peeled for The Gates, coming your way in 2018!
Over the summer my company Public Domain has been developing an innovative, on-line, multi-media, educational resource based on my play The Liberty Tree. The project is designed to provide resources that will introduce 16-25 year olds to the history of the battles for justice, freedom and equality that continue to be fought today.
Chris Jury 