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Political Pictures
When asked what a government most fears, one prime minister declared, "Events, dear boy. Events". These films chart events and people, real and imagined, who dared to ask for change, for power and for more.
From the revolutionary stirrings of Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin to the intellectual interrogation of The Stuart Hall Project, our collection offers an entryist route into cinema's body-politic: where radical thought meets imperative image-making.
Nature of the Beast Nature of the Beast
Biopic 2017 96 mins Director: Daniel Draper
A suitably forthright profile of the evergreen socialist, trade unionist and Labour politician Dennis Skinner - also known as the Beast of Bolsover.
Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle
Documentary 2017 82 mins Director: Paul Sng
Maxine Peake narrates this forthright polemic on the consequences of the 1980s Right-to-Buy scheme on the nation's affordable housing.
Welcome to Leith Welcome to Leith
Documentary 2015 86 mins Director: Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker
What would you do if a Nazi moved next door? This chilling documentary follows the white supremacist takeover of a tiny Dakotan town.
Land and Freedom Land and Freedom
War 1995 105 mins Director: Ken Loach
Ken Loach’s passionate war drama follows an idealistic young Liverpudlian (Ian Hart) who fights for the international brigade during the Spanish Civil War.
The Stuart Hall Project The Stuart Hall Project
Documentary 2013 99 mins Director: John Akomfrah
Composed of film, music and photographs from the archives, a fascinating portrait of the life and times of the founder of cultural studies and the New Left Experience.
Comrades Comrades
Historical drama 1987 182 mins Director: Bill Douglas
Bill Douglas' epic story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, six Dorset labourers deported to Australia in the 1830s for forming a trade union.
Winstanley Winstanley
Historical drama 1976 96 mins Director: Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo
An authentic historical drama about the visionary Gerrard Winstanley who led a group of impoverished 'Diggers' to assert their common rights.
Skinflicker Skinflicker
Drama 1973 41 mins Silent Director: Tony Bicât
Tony Bicât’s radical, found-footage record of a revolutionary act, in which three dissidents kidnap a cabinet and torture a cabinet minister.
Little Malcolm Little Malcolm
Drama 1975 111 mins Director: Stuart Cooper
Delusional revolutionary Malcolm Scrawdyke (John Hurt) leads his Party of Dynamic Erection in a battle against an unseen nemesis in this dark comedy.
Ascendancy Ascendancy
Drama 1983 82 mins Director: Edward Bennett
An English aristocrat is driven to despair over the effects of violence on her family.
Laboured Party Laboured Party
Documentary 1975 20 mins Director: Stephen Dwoskin
An unsuspecting Labour Party canvasser stumbles onto an experimental film set and is drawn into a strange atmosphere of uninhibited abandon.
The Birth of a Nation The Birth of a Nation
Historical drama 1915 191 mins Silent Director: D.W. Griffith
D W Griffith's highly controversial and abhorrently racist, yet historically significant American silent epic about the American Civil War and its aftermath.
That Hamilton Woman That Hamilton Woman
Biopic 1941 120 mins Director: Alexander Korda
Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier bring Hollywood glitz to the love affair between Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton in the midst of political turmoil.
Riddles of the Sphinx Riddles of the Sphinx
Drama 1977 87 mins Director: Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen
Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s visually accomplished and intellectually rigorous film is one of the most important avant-garde films of the 1970s.
Before the Revolution Before the Revolution
Drama 1964 107 mins Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci's beautifully operatic film celebrates the passion and ideology of the 1960s, winner of the Cannes Critics' Week prize in 1964.
Battleship Potemkin Battleship Potemkin
Historical drama 1925 69 mins Silent Director: Sergei M. Eisenstein
A fixture in the critical canon almost since its premiere, Eisenstein’s film about a 1905 naval mutiny was revolutionary in both form and content.