This is a great film for socialists with an interest in art. Written, produced, directed and narrated by Margy Kinmonth, the film focuses on the artistic avant-garde that flourished in advance of and following the 1917 Russian Revolution.
It moves on to discuss the changes in art subsequent to Stalin’s consolidation of power. The film gives a basic political history of the 1917 Revolution and the events that followed.
headlong.co.ukJunkyard: A new musical
Bristol Old Vic until 18 March, then touring
Elle is impeccably filmed and edited with stellar acting performances that grasp the attention of the audience. It intends to shock, infuriate and rile up the viewer.
However, it must come with a warning: this film could act as a serious trigger for anyone who has experienced domestic abuse or rape and as an insult to those of us who actively fight against women’s oppression.
Certain Women is made up of three stories involving four women in and around Livingston, Montana. Like Reichardt’s 2010 western, Meek’s Cutoff, at first glance little happens and nothing seems resolved. Yet, also like the previous film, the understated performances and spare dialogue convey huge amounts — of heartbreak, anger, loneliness and yearning.
Child’s Play is a photographic exhibition featuring photos by Mark Neville that focus on the nature of children’s play.
The exhibition has a very clear message that children should have more unstructured space in which to play freely. There are some very attention-grabbing photos taken in an adventure playground in Tottenham where children are able to explore and play.
This exhibition looks at key moments in the development of art from the French Revolution to the Second World War.
The main subject matter of European art from the 15th century onwards had been the ruling classes and their possessions. Realism had been the dominant artistic form. However, the successive political upheavals of the 19th century encouraged the spirit of rebellion in the arts.
An exhibition marking the centenary of the Russian Revolution and its art should be a celebration of one of the most innovative periods in the history of the visual arts and humanity. Instead the Royal Academy has produced a stolid exhibition without any sense of what the revolution overthrew. Also it is supported by modern Russian art collections, which bolster the narrative of communism as dictatorship.
Trotsky said of 1917, “The revolution is, in the first place, an awakening of human personality in the masses — who were supposed to possess no personality…”
New Nigerians is a rather timely, cynical satire about the state of Nigerian politics. The main protagonist, Greatness Ogholi, is the presidential candidate of the People’s Revolutionary Party. We first meet him giving a rather bombastic quasi-Fanonian speech about the ills that plague the nation and how only he, “the man of integrity”, can bring change. We soon learn that “Greatness” is not great and he is far from being “a man of integrity”.
Bristol Radical Film Festival
Various venues,13-15 October
The festival was founded in 2011 to showcase “a different kind of cinema” — contemporary and historical works of formally innovative, risk-taking, and/or overtly political left-wing documentary and fiction filmmaking. Its purpose is “to create a space in which an audience is moved, galvanised and informed”. After every screening there is space for discussion to encourage action, reflection and collaboration.
Prophets of Rage are a rap-rock supergroup formed in 2016 by members of Rage Against the Machine (RATM), Public Enemy and Cypress Hill.
Guitarist Tom Morello describes the group as “an elite task force of revolutionary musicians determined to confront this mountain of election year bullshit, and confront it head-on with Marshall stacks blazing”.