London Socialist Film Co-op: 2019

SUNDAY, 12 JANUARY, 2020 AT 10:20 FOR 11:00 AM

The Silence of Others

Co-directors: Robert Bahar, Almudena Carracedo, Spain, 2018, doc. Spanish [EST], 96 min.
This award-winning documentary film tells the story of victims of Spain's 40-year dictatorship, who continue to seek justice to this day...A 1977 amnesty law in Spain known as "the pact of forgetting" prohibits legal action related to the oppression, torture, and murder of an estimated 100,000 people during Franco’s 40-year dictatorship. But for much of the population – including the survivor who passes his torturer’s home every day, the children of forcibly disappeared parents found buried in mass graves, and parents still searching for their children seized at birth – there is no peace in silence. Taking strength and inspiration from justice-seekers in Chile and Guatemala, they continue to search. Speakers: Jim Jump, International Brigade Memorial Trust

Screenings are at Bolivar Hall, 54 Grafton Way, London W1T 5DL.Nearest tube: Warren Street. Overground: Euston. Buses: 10, 14, 18, 24, 27, 29, 30, 73, 88, 134, 205, 390. Booking information: tickets are available from 10.20 am on the day and may not be booked in advance. Admission £10, concessions £8. Annual members £6/£4. Sorry, no credit cards.

Sunday, 08 December 2019, 10:20 for 11:00

Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle

Paul Sng, UK, 2017, documentary, English, 82 mins.

This documentary film explores the agenda behind the neglect, demolition and regeneration of council estates in the U.K. over the past thirty years. The film reveals how individuals and communities are fighting against the state and private developers, as they try to save their homes from demolition, while investigating the decisions that turned a crisis into a tragedy...

Speakers : Glyn Robbins, Housing worker, writer, Visiting Researcher at London Metropolitan University

London’s Ancient Markets – their fight for survival

Dir. Sandra Shevey, UK, 2018, doc. English, 28 min.

This documentary about the demise of London`s traditional street markets challenges the cult of globalisation and gentrification of urban food areas and of food economy. At the Portobello it was listed under `Films We Love’. To encourage support for street market sustainability, Sandra runs Street Market walks. https://londonstreetmarketswalk.wordpress.com/

Speaker: Sandra Shevey, film director

Screenings are at Bolivar Hall, 54 Grafton Way, London W1T 5DL.
Nearest tube: Warren Street. Overground: Euston.
Buses: 10, 14, 18, 24, 27, 29, 30, 73, 88, 134, 205, 390.
Booking information: tickets are available from 10.20 am on the day and may not be booked in advance.
Admission £10, concessions £8. Annual members £6/£4. Sorry, no credit cards.
Membership details.

Sunday, 10 November 2019, 10:20 for 11:00

Clara Immerwahr

Harald Sicheritz, Austria, 2014, biography, German, [EST], 88 min.

The brilliant chemists Clara and Fritz want to change the world. At the end of the 19th century Clara has to struggle to be admitted to a university to study. When WWI breaks out Fritz Haber volunteers for the army. The dreadful poison gas he develops changes the war. Clara sees all her ideals and dreams betrayed by the man she loves.

The film tells the life story of the first PhD German chemist Clara Immerwahr (1870-1915) and focuses on the question of morality in science and the role of a woman as a scientist at the beginning of the 20th century.

Speakers with Q&A

SUNDAY, 13 OCTOBER, 2019, 10:20 for 11:00 am

The Coming War on China

John Pilger, UK, 2016, documentary, English, 113 mins.

China, we are told by US government officials and the parroting establishment media has been aggressively attempting to expand its territory by taking over islands in the South China Sea. China, we are told, is a threat to peace.

It’s true, veteran journalist John Pilger concedes in the opening of his latest documentary film, The Coming War on China, that China has been trying to claim disputed territories in the South China Sea. But if this makes China a threat to peace, what does it make the US but the most aggressive and warmongering threat—not only to peace but to life on Earth itself—that has ever existed?

Discussion with Q&A's: CAAT, CND

Sunday, 8 September, 10:20 for 11:00

A Letter fromVenezuela

Nancy Carolina Graterol, Venezuela, 2019, Spanish, [EST] 78 min.

A poignant documentary interweaving a personal story of loss and the reality of life in Venezuela. In spite of the US and EU sanctions and the “weapons of mass deception”, Venezuelans are learning fast to overcome difficulties thrown in their way of a growing democracy, be it lack of toilet paper, toothpaste or urgently needed medicines..it cannot be right. The film takes us through the streets of Caracas and notes what people in the streets experience. A must-see film!

Speaker: Nancy Carolina Graterol, film director

SUNDAY, 12 MAY, 2019, 10:20 for 11:00 AM

Calais’ Children: A Case To Answer

Dir. Sue Clayton, 2017, UK, English/French/German, 62 mins,

Calais Children follows the young people over the months since they left the Jungle. The film speaks to Lord Dubs, the volunteer groups, and the lawyers with whom she is challenging the Home Office’s actions in the High Court. A compelling film that follows the scandal of what happened to the almost 2,000 lone children who were in the Calais jungle as it burned down last year. Most had a legal case to be in the UK. What went wrong? Where are they now? And, what can we do about it?

Speaker: Dir. Sue Clayton and Clare Moseley from Care4Calais

The Patriot Games by George Galloway,

Dirs. McDonald Brown/Ron McKay, UK, 2018, documentary, UK, English, 27 min.

The Far Right in Britain isn’t just on the march, it is taking violent, murderous action. A neo-Nazi group called National Action applauded the murder and the murderer of a young woman member of the British Parliament, Jo Cox. Other alleged members are charged with plotting the murder of another MP and two British soldiers, said to be from the same group, face serious terrorism charges. Fascism and far-right extremism, street violence and confrontation isn’t new in Britain. It dates back to at least the 1930s, and Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts. Today’s incarnations are no less deadly. George Galloway investigates how it began, how it developed and reveals the major players in the latest mass street movement.

SUNDAY, 14 APRIL, 2019, 10:20 for 11:00 AM

Dennis Skinner: Nature of the Beast

Daniel Draper, UK, 2017, Documentary, PG, English, 106 min.

Raised alongside nine siblings within a mining village, Dennis has fought for the rights of the working class for over 50-years. Uncompromising in his views and with a set of incorruptible principles, Dennis is respected and feared on both sides of the House of Commons. Nature of the Beast looks at what lies behind his passion and drive, and tracks his rise from a local councillor to today, where he is one of Britain's most recognisable politicians - known as ‘The Beast of Bolsover’.

Speaker: Dir. Daniel Draper

Screenings are at Bolivar Hall, 54 Grafton Way, London W1T 5DL.
Nearest tube: Warren Street. Overground: Euston.
Buses: 10, 14, 18, 24, 27, 29, 30, 73, 88, 134, 205, 390.
Booking information: tickets are available from 10.20 am on the day and may not be booked in advance.
Admission £10, concessions £8. Annual members £6/£4. Sorry no credit cards.
Membership details.

SUNDAY, 10 MARCH, 2019, 10:20 for 11:00

These Dangerous Women

Clapham Film Unit, UK, 2017 documentary, 24 min.

This documentary celebrates and commemorates the 100th anniversary of the International Congress of Women that took place on the 28th April 1915, when 1300 women from 12 countries – warring, neutral and allied – met at The Hague.

They advocated mediation between the politicians to end the First World War and proposed methods of settling future differences between nations by peaceful means

Women’s Peace Crusade

Dir. Charlotte Bill, UK, 2016/17, English, 22 min.

Script by Alison Ronan and Hazel Roy, featuring Florence King as Mabel Pythian and Emma Thomas as Lydia Leech.

Funded by AHRC via Voices for War and Peace

The Women's Peace Crusade swept like wildfire across Britain from 1916 -1918. This film tells the story of the North West women who took part in Manchester, Blackburn, Oldham, and Nelson. Speaker: Sheila Triggs

War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death

Dir. Loretta Alper, Jeremy Earp, USA, 2007, English, 73 min.

Based on Norman Solomon's book, War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations.

Speakers: Kate Hudson, CND, Chris Nineham, Stop The War Coalition

SUNDAY, 10 FEBRUARY, 2019, 10:30 AM FOR 11:00 AM

FIRE AT SEA

Gianfranco Rosi, Italy France, 2016, 12, English/Italian, [EST] 109 min.

Samuel is 12 years old and lives on an island in the middle of the sea. He goes to school, loves shooting his slingshot and hunting. He likes land games, even though everything around him speaks of the sea and the men, women, and children who try to cross to his island. But his is not an island like the others. It is Lampedusa and has been the most symbolic gateway to Europe for thousands of would-be immigrants in the last 20 years.