Director: Felipe Bustos Sierra
Looking at the world, it is easy to believe it is a terrible place, filled with corruption, inhumanity, intolerance, bigotry and aggression especially with constant media reports of war, the rise of the right and destruction of civilised life. But then you watch Everybody to Kenmure Street and it restores your faith in good, decent people, something we all desperately need to be reminded of. While Governments and world leaders try to reshape the map and as political groups and even the media try to sew dissent and division, Felipe Bustos Sierra’s film will make you see how significant the gap between the government and the governed really is when a group of neighbours and strangers in Glasgow’s Pollockshields district came together to protect two men from State forces attempting to sieze and deport them.
Put together almost entirely from private smartphone footage taken from hundreds of individuals in and around Kenmure Street on the day in 2021 along with talking head interviews with key protestors, lawyers and neighbours, Sierra’s film is an extraordinary and important record of public protest and, more importantly, strength of feeling as it builds and builds across this significant day. As reassuring as it is to see people actively denying their support for immigration dawn raids – the policy of then Home Secretary Priti Patel – it is just fascinating to see how the initial intervention of a couple of neighbours became a far larger district-wide demonstration of care and support as hundreds join, come together and peaceably advocate for the two men being held in the van.
Everybody to Kenmure Street is an amazing story and an impressive administrative feat, gathering hours of footage to piece together the events of this day, presented here chronologically as it unfolded, while also drawing out some major state-of-the-nation themes from attitudes to immigration and the heavy-handedness of immigration enforcement, to the questionable role of Scottish police in enforcing Home Office decisions as well as the methods of community policing and policing by consent. It is unsurprising, though perhaps a shame, that their perspective isn’t represented here and while the attitudes and activities of officers on the ground do not come across well, underscoring the level of mistrust evinced by the protestors, it is also clearly a complex situation for them as they quicky become outnumbered. Some indication of what they thought they were doing and why their decision-making was so wide of the mark could add useful understanding.
Talking head interviews conducted some time later give structure to the film, helping to build a sense of the day that the story can hang from as well as capturing reflections on the event and its meaning – including anonymously from one of the men in the van recounting his experience of knowing but not knowing what was happening outside. The use of Emma Thompson to read the anonymous words of a key protestor – one of only two actors in the film – feels a little stagey and distracting, although those are vital sources. But this is a great story, an important show of unity and from a technical filmmaking perspective, a complex and thorough piece of research.
The world perhaps isn’t such a bad place after all and it just goes to show, love your neighbour because whoever they are they will love you back when you really need it.
Everybody to Kenmure Street is released in UK and Irish cinemas on 13 March.
