Nightcleaners (Karlin/Kelly/Scott, 1975): Barbican Cinema, 4.30pm
Barbican Cinema introduction:
In London, in the early seventies, a group of women had begun to leaflet cleaners who worked at night to encourage them to form a union. This labour organisation became the central action of the documentary. Completed in 1975, Nightcleaners is the combined work of Marc Karlin, Mary Kelly, James Scott and Humphry Trevelyan, together known as the Berwick Street Film Collective. The film quickly became known for its innovative structure. Through its approach to revealing otherwise hidden truths, it successfully challenges conventional documentary storytelling. More than any other film produced during this period, it stands out as a work that, to this day, continues to inspire a new generation of filmmakers to question longstanding practices in political filmmaking.
Time Out review:
This documentary started out as a conventional agit-prop project in
support of the 1972 campaign to unionise women nightcleaners in London.
In the three years that it took to complete, it turned into something
very much more complex and challenging: a film that places the
nightcleaners' campaign within a series of broader political discussions
formulated as an 'open text' which asks as many questions about its own
status as a film as it does about the socio-political issues that are
its subject. No engaged person should overlook its challenge.
Tony Rayns
Here (and above) is an extract.
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