Georgia Halston covers the Leeds Antifascist Film Festival, which ran for the weekend of the 4th and 5th of February. Below is coverage from Sunday. If you missed Saturday’s roundup, then check it out here.
A later start on Sunday saw many of the same faces arriving for first film Land and Freedom. Directed by British indie filmmaker Ken Loach, Land and Freedom is a film based around the Spanish Civil War and follows fictitious protagonist, David, from his scouse roots to fight for his communist beliefs in a war-stricken Spain.
Organisers at the festival had taken the time to research and reiterate each film’s plot and described themes and a social backdrop to the audience before beginning each film. Leading onto the next feature this practice was duplicated and a fair and insightful introduction was also given to documentary Living Utopia, The Anarchists & The Spanish Revolution, further entrenching the theme of Spanish Fascism within Sunday’s mantra.
With the room filling up, the Leeds Anarchist Black Cross and organisers of the event took the chance to give a short talk about what their organisation stands for. The articulate female speaker started with who they are trying to help. The list mainly consists of imprisoned antifascists who need help from the outside and other antifascist organisations. She moved on to how money is raised, describing methods from literature and letter writing to music nights and events. Finally she concluded with a notion of how the organisation is looking forward and noted the essential nature of their website and other digital channels such as social networking. After the presentation I managed to collar the speaker to delve a little deeper, particularly on the nature of their philanthropy. She explained that funds generated go to the publication of pamphlets and other literature with the initiative of bringing political language down from an academic elite to speak to a wider audience in the hope of wider audience participation. Another big push for the organisation is simply writing to those who are imprisoned and showing solidarity and compassion to those who may have lost hope. If you want to be involved in the scheme or write to any of the political prisoners mentioned, you can here.
A full room of antifascists met for the next feature film Pan’s Labyrinth. Venturing further into the Spanish Civil War theme, this modern visual masterpiece enthralled its audience, which I imagine is usually the case in any circumstance. A chilling story set against the backdrop of a fascist regime in 1944 rural Spain, Pan’s Labyrinth is a stunning piece of cinematic gold. Despite its fantastic nature, one cannot brush past the veins of political oppression and trust me on this; it’s not for kids!
Livening up the room was an all-inclusive effort on the Dead Fascist Quiz. After a whole weekend learning about fascism I thought I may be in with a good chance on this but scored a measly 1 ½ out of 20! The winning score was 14 and prizes were received.
Rounding off the day and the festival was ‘To The Barricades!’ – the musical soundings of Mr Javaad Alipoor. His multi-cultural, multi-lingual musical expression of a political stance was impressive to say the least. This antifascist bard and band of merry men brought us both musically accompanied and a cappella anthems in French, Italian, Persian and Arabic as well as some well known English and Irish tunes. The talented musician demanded crowd participation and was not disappointed!
For me, the most pleasing impression left was the diversity of attendees to the festival and how the organisers had shrewdly put together a list of activities and features that would weld us together as a group, not to mention keeping us all warm, fed and watered throughout the weekend! I felt a real sense of community had been generated within a makeshift, former industrial space in a small corner of a progressively snow covered Leeds. The organisers were very thankful to all attendees and all the donations and money raised through the selling of books, clothing, food and drink as well as all signatures on cards to their politically imprisoned comrades. A resounding success.
Read more about the Leeds Anarchist Black Cross and their thoughts on the event here.
Georgia is a freelance creative, who has worked on Leeds Digital Festival and organised Snapshot Leeds. You can find her on Twitter @georgiahalston and see her blog, A Georgian Guide To Casual Whimsy here .
Mike McKenny is The Culture Vulture’s film editor. If you have any film related stories, articles, reviews with a twist, etc, contact him on mike.mckenny1983@gmail.com or find him on Twitter @DestroyApathy