SFF 2023 DAY 1

Scarborough Film Festival kicked off yesterday with an exciting programme of films and recorded performance that brought attention to the environment and activism. The core themes of community, coast, and environment were all touched upon in diverse and exciting ways throughout the evening.

Firstly we were treated to a pairing of films that explore aspects of life in England’s coastal communities. Mark Jenkin’s breakout feature Bait manages to tap into a kind of epic narrative through its close adherence to its Cornish setting. At its core the film is concerned with struggle in the Cornish town. The town in which Bait is set remains nameless, giving it an anonymous almost mythic aura, the issues presented are not localised but widespread across Corwall and beyond. Jenkin has discussed how he used multiple towns and interior locations for the film, the fact that he ‘can’t be accused of making a film that's an issue in a specific town, [... or] piss off any locals who feel like [he’s] commenting on their way of life,’ this approach allows the film to inhabit ‘an allegorical space as much as anything.’ and lends the film a universal quality, drawing attention to how the story follows beats of classical tragedy while depicting the characters as individuals specific to this particular narrative that also serve as archetypes that indicate the larger themes. The combination of Cornwall as a setting, as well as Jenkin’s experimental use of 16mm film and visual and sound editing choices in the film bring dimensions to the film that we rarely see in contemporary filmmaking. The dialogue was all recorded after the filming process and post-synced with the visuals which contributes a sometimes uncanny effect to the voices and extremity to the sound effects. Film as a real material thing is apparent and a focus for Jenkin, his process reveals imperfections in the film, there is a noticeable grain - this visibility of the analogue filmmaking process brings up similarities between the traditional work of filmmaking and fishing which are often observed as fading arts in the modern world.

The film explores the tensions present in places that exist as tourist destinations, what the relationships between the native population and the new/ tourist inhabitants mean, how their presence changes the town, or potentially how their presence is a symptom rather than a cause of such change. Jenkin wrote and directed this film which is a highly personal project, and this deep personal involvement shows through in his extension of empathy that imbues all aspects of the story and characters. The film doesn’t straightforwardly empathise with Martin (Edward Rowe) as its Cornish protagonist, Rowe portrays the Cornish fisherman with unlikeable qualities which serve to humanise him as they complicate a straightforwardly good vs. evil narrative. The ‘gentrifiers’ vs. ‘locals’ narrative is clearly communicated as Martin’s perspective, but Jenkin doesn’t shy away from showing his failings. Equally, while the couple Sandra and Tim (Mary Woodvine and Simon Shepherd) that bought Martin’s family’s childhood home are portrayed as out of touch with the origins of the town and seemingly completely at odds with Martin’s worldview and lifestyle, and their insistence on being part of the community seems slightly ridiculous, the satire is bitingly accurate and the performances in conjunction with the filmmaking methods allow these elements to stay firmly grounded in the real. Jenkin’s resistance to portraying any of the issues as strictly black and white allows the film to comment at its core on the underlying structural issues in the economy and society at large that have led to the destruction of Britain’s fishing culture and the rise of the tourism industry in its place that has contributed to the current state of Cornwall.

Bait was quickly followed by Scarborough-set short film The Tide which also explores the nature of life and work in a seaside town, and how economic change and demand affects community and individual identity. We were joined by some members of the cast and crew of The Tide who discussed the inspiration behind and the process of making the film itself in more depth. The process of filming this project was delightfully described as a ‘wet, cold baptism of fire’, and while it seems to have been a difficult but rewarding process, the cast and crew sung the praises of the Scarborough community and their support during production. Similarly to Jenkin’s film, The Tide is firmly grounded in the local and made in collaboration with the community but is set in Scarborough as opposed to Cornwall. The film explores loss and grief in a deeply personal way that the nature of the film demands due to its shorter runtime encouraging a tighter focus for the narrative. The exploration of the relationships between the men in the film is portrayed in a refreshing manner that speaks to the strong links in the fishing community that will erode along with the industry if it is not valued and is allowed to continue on its current path. The inability for fishermen to be able to repair their old boats or buy new boats to carry out their work has a real impact on individuals and the community around them.

The Tide, like Bait, offers suggestions of the uncanny and introduces folklore-inspired elements into its narrative. Bringing in elements of the history and folklore of their settings grounds these films firmly in their communities, the understanding and grounding in the history and atmosphere of their settings allows them to authentically represent the stories being told, which is key in these films as the narratives focus on the precarity of the community and nature as under threat. Skipper’s (Francis Magee) final scene is perhaps the most visually impactful of the film as a whole, the night setting and lighting of this scene was discussed by the members of the Q&A panel as a group effort to take advantage of the natural lighting in the moment. The scene between Skipper and the Night Angler (Olwen Fouéré) places us in a kind of liminal dream-space that more explores his psyche than sitting within the ‘reality’ of the film’s world which works harmoniously with the visual impact of the scene. The crew clearly had fantastic experiences filming the short and Liam Thomas discussed his current project in the works that will bring The Tide’s crew back together to carry out his vision for a Yorkshire-set Western, so keep a lookout for exciting news about that!

Finally, we returned to the cinema to engage with Fehinti Balogun and Complicité’s production Can I Live?. This performance piece that focuses on Balogun’s personal relationship to activism and climate collapse takes a more direct approach to the theme of environment asking wide ranging questions such as: what is our place as individuals in a precarious ecosystem, what does collective action look like and how do we achieve and acknowledge successes as activists? We were also joined by Fehinti Balogun the creator and main performer and Samia Dumbuya an activist who appears in the performance, to engage in an intimate discussion of the themes and the inspiration we may take from the piece and how we may convert this into further engagement and collective action. The piece manages to straddle serving hard-hitting and impactful information while remaining engaging and entertaining. Balogun discussed that he wanted to find a creative way to talk about big issues, aiming to challenge the ‘language of ostracisation’ that surrounds discussions of the climate crisis. In bringing a creative approach he wanted to cast as wide a net as he could to engage his audiences, keeping the structure as simple as possible and building up to songs periodically throughout as he aspires to move people emotionally in the manner of song.

Balogun also touched on his material strategy and aims, Can I Live? is not a standalone piece but works in conjunction with the group discussion to maximise action by engaging with the audiences’ personal connections and bringing awareness to location specific projects. Balogun discussed the way long term strategy and organisation leads up to the tipping point moments that tend to characterise political movements. He brings attention to the achievements they have made with the Green Rider by working with organisations such as MSNBC, Equity and the BBC. The discussion between Balogun and Dumbuya brought attention to the desperate need for collective engagement and connection as a way to combat the individualism that works in favour of those in power as ‘a strategic narrative to stop people doing anything’. Dumbuya touched on some of the ways in which we can engage and be working to carry out activist projects in ways that differ from the usual understandings of what ‘counts’ as activism. She mentioned how the commodification of ‘activist’ as a title contributes to this narrowing of the definition and discussed how the work of activism can be a huge number of things - from admin to making the tea at a meeting. She described ‘activism as nourishing the movement’, rather than viewing it as a personal ‘hero's journey’ that can lead to alienation and burnout.

The discussion threw up many important causes in the film industry as well as organisations and initiatives local to Scarborough: the importance of joining labour unions such as Equity; the Green Rider and how actors can work with productions to encourage sustainability; the damage of water pollution to the Sea which is a key mission of Surfers Against Sewage (https://www.sas.org.uk/about-us/); the audience also drew attention to local green projects as ways to promote environmental work and change.

This was a hugely exciting first evening, with a wide range of styles and voices that still remained thematically tied together by commitment to the environment nourishing and in need of nourishment. Complicité are touring Can I Live? at local film festivals and events across the country so there are many opportunities to engage with this fantastic piece - they also provide resources and information on their website that are free to access: https://www.complicite.org/work/can-i-live/.

Tish

Scarborough Film Festival showed the upcoming documentary Tish at their most recent screening, Tish is an exploration of the life of social documentary photographer Tish Murtha and was shown as the opening film at Sheffield DocFest this June. The film paints a rich portrait of a hugely talented subject who was underappreciated in her time and not granted the platform and attention that her work is receiving in the years after her death.

Ella Murtha, Tish’s daughter is our access point into the film, exploring her mother’s life through interviews with family, friends, teachers, and mentors. The film also includes readings from Tish’s personal writings which are delivered in voiceover by Maxine Peake and convey the passion she had for her work and for her community. It becomes clear through interviews as well as the use of her photography archive throughout the film, that for Tish these strands of her life were inextricable from each other. Each interview has a tenderness that brings a sense of tangibility to Murtha as a subject that is really commendable, especially as Ella and her interviewees don’t shy away from the complexities and difficulties she faced throughout her life and career. Tish’s siblings share truths about their family and personal lives that grant us insight into Tish’s background and everyday experience. Of course, the rich archive of Tish’s work is omnipresent and the frankness and beauty of her photography reflects the scenes that the interviewees describe.

It is clear that Tish as a film aspires to the sensitivity and dignity with which Tish herself approached her subjects. Ella Murtha’s close involvement in the project and the filmmakers’ clear passion for their subject contribute to the way the film is able to reflect feelings evoked by Tish’s photography throughout her life. The interviews and reading of Tish’s correspondence accompanying photography from her ‘Demon Snapper’ era, aka the Juvenile Jazz Bands series conveys the tongue-in-cheek, rebellious view of Tish in this time period. Later in the film, interviews with her friends and collaborators on London By Night (1983) evokes the mood of the place and time as well as in Tish’s life as well as the precarity of her situation at the time.

Ella Murtha’s access to her mother’s archive allows us to view a huge amount of Tish’s collection that has been largely unseen. In the past few years Murtha has been able to publish book versions of Youth Unemployment, Elswick Kids, and ​Juvenile Jazz Bands, as well as the National Portrait Gallery acquiring some of Murtha’s prints. While the documentary is an often emotional journey ending with the tragedy of Tish’s sudden death, Ella Murtha’s commitment and various successes in securing her mother’s legacy in British photography lends the film a bittersweet ending. Tish’s unwavering commitment to her communities and to speaking truth through her art is demonstrated by the warmth and clarity with which she is remembered by those who knew her.

Are You Proud?

This month’s edition of Scarborough Film Festival focused on Pride, with showings of Holly Summerson’s Acceptable Face, and Ashley Joiner’s Are You Proud?, followed by a fantastic Q&A with Lel Meleyal, Joel Hague & Nathan Wackett.

The selection of Summerson’s and Joiner’s films demonstrate how progress in LGBTQ+ history may be measured and how the ways in which we envision ‘progress’ can open up new paths towards liberation but how these new frontiers can also carry the risk of erasing and speaking over history. Summerson’s Acceptable Face highlights the difficulties with visibility and queerness, the ‘clockability’ of gay and trans people has been a topic of discussion both from within and directed at the LGBTQ+ community for its entire history. The ways many young people today are able to experiment with self expression and appearing as openly queer is possible due only to the previous generations’ struggles for liberation. In its documenting of the history of Pride as a movement, Are You Proud? powerfully engages with how we think about the momentum of queer liberation movements and how each movement and generation is intrinsically linked. Son of a Tutu raises this point very clearly in their discussion of how their generation fought the battles of race which paved the way for the younger generation to focus on the issues of today, such as cultural appropriation.

Intergenerational communication was foregrounded in both Are You Proud? and the Q&A, each of which engaged with different dimensions of this theme. In Are You Proud? I was particularly struck by the section focussing on the HIV epidemic and how the way it was treated by the public wreaked destruction on the community. Michael Cashman’s discussion of how parents of AIDS victims, ‘claimed back their child […] sanitised them, heterosexualised them in their burials and their cremations, took away their history’, was a powerful moment which highlights the importance of archiving in the queer community, especially because the epidemic meant huge swathes of especially older gay men are absent and unable to speak for themselves as queer elders on today’s issues. This point was further engaged in the Q&A. An audience member brought up the fact that archiving queer history doesn’t mean only engaging with people’s personal archives but also publicly available materials - anti-gay propaganda and media such as that which spread false narratives about HIV are important to document and engage with to memorialise the challenges of the past and avoid repeating history. Lel Meleyal raised the question of ‘official’ narratives of history and how traditional educational pathways can tend towards dismissing or ignoring personal and anecdotal history, a particular problem in the history of the LGBTQ+ movement which has always existed on the margins and lacks much of the institutional infrastructure granted to many other movements and events.

The sanitisation and commercialisation of the LGBTQ+ movement and Pride as an event are issues that are brought up in Are You Proud?, the film engages with the difficulties of handling what was and in many ways still is a radical political movement that has become popular and profitable to support. The commercialisation of Pride, i.e. the event being attended and supported by a huge number of major companies, is interesting in the light of the discussion of how we think about queer archives and history that was raised in the Q&A. There is a danger of pinkwashing and sanitising of queer history and issues, as the public is more comfortable with certain parts of the LGBTQ+ community, however in integrating with and educating the straight community it is important not to cut out the parts that may cause discomfort. As the slogan says, ‘Pride is a protest’, and it is critical that the community retains its radical potential. However, the fact that in England today Pride as a movement has the huge platform and mainstream appeal that it has gained is important and allows for freedom for LGBTQ+ folks in many ways. Joel and Nathan reminded us of the importance of queer-defined spaces. In discussing their project The Queer Infoshop, they highlighted the question of queer spaces as claimed by the community versus purpose-made queer spaces, and the lack of the latter in the local Scarborough area. This reflects back the discussion of the place of queer people in the UK prior to the GLF and the Pride movement, early in Are You Proud? the ‘gay world’ is discussed as an ‘underworld, a twilit place’ which the speaker ‘hated’ upon coming out. Joel and Nathan raised the importance of having LGBTQ+ owned and operated spaces which allow for open and honest inter- and cross-generational engagement in the community. They highlighted the limits of ‘unofficial’ queer spaces which the community may claim as their own, but within which we cannot claim full ownership and freedom. The Pride movement has progressed so far since the narrowly defined allowances for gay relationships as outlined in the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, we can trace the need and demand for public LGBTQ+ spaces within which to build open and strong communities that have always been central to the Pride movement through to today with projects such as The Queer Infoshop.

At the end of Are You Proud?, the filmmakers draw attention to some of the issues in the ongoing fight for LGBTQ+ rights and freedom, despite its many achievements there is still far to go in the struggle for queer liberation. Early in the Q&A discussion, Lel raised the issue of the North-South divide as a problem in the UK LGBTQ+ community. She acknowledged the Southern-bias displayed in Are You Proud? and recalls how at the time while many of the events depicted in the documentary were taking place in London, the access for northern LGBTQ+ people was limited due to difficulties in finding people willing to transport them to London to participate. She recounted that a member of the community ended up borrowing a coach from the bus company to take a group to Pride in 1982. She acknowledged the fact that the South and London in particular is more densely populated which contributes towards there being more spaces and activity in these areas - however, there were and continue to be extra resources and access available to affluent young, often white and cisgender gay men in London that fail to reach the North of England. By drawing attention to the struggles of the past, Are You Proud? further emphasises how far we still have to go - participants discuss the homophobia present in the Global South, and issues with immigration and queerness, citing that in 2010 almost 99% of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers were denied asylum. It is important to view this film as a piece of media that occupies a place within the queer archives in its own right. As Martha suggested, in archiving it is important to ask ‘who compiled this and what is missing’. Looking back in 2023 using this film as a lens, we may be prompted to look at the way Pride as a political movement and the queer community along with it has changed, evolved, and has even been forced backwards since the 1960s (where Are You Proud? picks up). The increased levels of anti-LGBTQ+ radicalisation in online spaces and the rise of institutionalised transphobia in the US and the UK in particular are alarming developments in the intervening years, and compiling and archiving the struggles and victories of the past holds the power to inspire in the ongoing fight for liberation.