Decent Place with Hot and Cold

An impressively stark documentary study of Birmingham slums - past and present.

This quietly impressive film captures precious - sometimes startling – memories of Birmingham slums of the depression years. But it doesn't stop there: the filmmakers go on to explore the erosion of community that sometimes followed from slum clearance, and the modern urban poverty still very much in our midst.

Shot in stark 16mm monochrome, this little-known film was made for Shelter but has the flavour of an independent labour-of-love. It's a thoughtful, fascinating blend of low-budget documentary-making and charity campaigning film, oral history and investigative reportage.