This film is part of Free
Occupy!
Pete Postlethwaite, Bill Nighy and Julie Walters appear in this film about a four-year struggle to set up a worker’s cooperative.
Overview
Pete Postlethwaite, Bill Nighy and Julie Walters, make some of their earliest performances on film in the story of a four-year struggle to set up a worker’s cooperative at a Fisher-Bendix factory in Kirkby. Gael Dohany’s polemical and formally radical documentary recounts the passage of industrial dispute through a mixture of interviews, news reports and scenes from a play about the occupation performed by the Liverpool Everyman Theatre.
Also intercut are ‘eye-witness’ reports from similar events in Turin in 1919 and Detroit in 1936. With the use of such fictionalised interviews and its intercutting of material, the film has stylistic echoes of the work of Peter Watkins and Jean-Luc Godard, but rather than making broader political commentary Dohany is focused on the intrigue of this localised struggle. Occupy! was funded by the BFI Production Board during a brief period of mid-1970s political radicalism when the Board also funded films by London Women's Film Group, Cinema Action and the Berwick Street Collective.
Related
High Treason (sound version) High Treason (sound version)
Science Fiction 1929 68 mins
Extravagantly-mounted futuristic sci-fi, now with added sound, although still with the world's two power blocs at loggerheads.
High Treason (silent version) High Treason (silent version)
Science Fiction 1929 75 mins Silent
A terrorist plot plays out on a backdrop of towering skyscrapers, bullet-railways and silver lamé in this vintage vision of London's future.
The Tunnel The Tunnel
Science Fiction 1936 93 mins
The construction of a transatlantic tunnel linking Britain and America hits trouble in an entertaining slice of speculative fiction.
The Private Life of Don Juan The Private Life of Don Juan
Comedy 1934 87 mins
Husbands lock up their wives when the renowned Romeo returns to Seville; but the man wooing the city’s ladies is not what he seems.
A Message from Mars A Message from Mars
Science Fiction 1913 60 mins Location: London
Britain's first full-length science fiction feature has been restored by the BFI National Archive and given a new score by composer Matthew Herbert, commissioned by the BFI and the BBC.
Hedd Wyn Hedd Wyn
War 1992 115 mins Location: Trawsfynydd
The stirring story of poet Ellis Evans-Hedd Wyn, the Welsh poet posthumously awarded the Eisteddfod chair at Birkenhead in 1917 after failing to return from 1st World War trenches.
Frederick Wiseman's High School - a discussion Frederick Wiseman's High School - a discussion
Short documentary 2026 22 mins
Filmmaker Andrea Luka Zimmerman and curator Matthew Barrington discuss Frederick Wiseman’s High School with Sandra Hebron.
Hard, Cracked the Wind Hard, Cracked the Wind
Horror 2019 17 mins
A haunting with words is the lure between life and death for a young Cornish poet.
A Last Resort A Last Resort
Comedy 2022 17 mins
Rose is desperate to celebrate her 60th birthday in style, but her daughter Genevieve is struggling to ignore some recent tragic news about her mum.
Seagull Seagull
Horror 2022 6 mins
Seagull is a recovering drug addict who is about to have a very strange night on The English Riviera.
The Walk The Walk
Drama 2023 12 mins
Adeel Akhtar portrays a man on a weekly trek to his nearest JobCentre, entering a state of purgatory through barriers put in place by the system.
Octopus Octopus
2021 13 mins
Upon returning to her home town for a funeral, a young woman reconnects with the friends she left behind.