It’s been nearly 2 months since the Grenfell Tower fire. In this time 9 survivors, local residents and volunteers have felt compelled to make a film to dispel the public’s fear from the Lancaster West community and reveal the deep impact this has had on them as people.
‘The survivors are not statistics they are humans beings’, says Adrianne McKenzie, one of the film-makers who has been struck by the way the survivors are seen in terms of ‘what they can be given … not as people’. Film-maker and youth worker Nendie Pinto-Duschinsky supported the team of young film-makers and describes the film as ‘harrowing to make’ but the ‘articulacy, dignity and insight of the young people will change perceptions’. Young people lost their lives on the night running into the building to save people. We hope the film will transform the way the community are seen from ‘angry and un-relatable’ to the truth that they are ‘coping with their suffering by trying to help other people’. Their humanity and morality is the clear message.
The media has covered the story in ways that the local community are not satisfied with, the evening will touch in the disparity between eye witness accounts and the reporting of events as they unfold on national media as well as the dangerous spread of misinformation.
There will be a discussion after the film with the survivors of the tragedy and the film-makers to share their personal accounts of the fire, and how disasters like this are reported in the UK.
Joining the discussion will be the journalist Ed Vulliamy. Growing up in Notting Hill, Vulliamy has written regularly on the ruthless development of the area that has divided those living in West London. He regularly writes for the Guardian.
Watch Channel 4’s excerpt of the film here
Interviews with some of the young people in the film here
Speakers
Zoe Dainton and David Benjamin lived on the 4th Floor of Grenfell Tower where the fire started. ‘ We’re two of the lucky ones we survived, we got out. People feel lost right now, everyone’s walking round like zombies[…] Here round Latimer where Grenfell is everyone knew each other, was friendly with each other there wasn’t much trouble. It was nice, as a community we were quite close…Some kids are lucky that they won’t remember this apart from in pictures and videos. There was a girl who went to school the next day and done her GCSEs in her pyjamas, she’s going to remember that forever’.
Shona Harvey lives 5 minutes from Grenfell Tower and went to primary school with Zoe. ‘Ladbroke Grove was a special area for me to grow up in because it’s culturally diverse, and it’s home to one of the biggest street carnivals in the world, The Notting Hill Carnival’, Shoana says. ‘Even myself, I was sitting down with some friends in a cafe, we were talking about what’s going on but then you do pause and think, am I laughing too much? I do think to myself maybe I feel a little better… but then you watch more footage on the news and it hits me again and I can feel my emotions building up and you realise it’s still quite fresh’.
Adrianne McKenzie is a freelance film-maker who spent much of her youth in West London. She was making a film about the closure of Stowe Youth Club near to Grenfell Tower when the fire happened. She picked up her camera and began to record events from the first night. Struck by the de-humanisation of the survivors, spending time on the ground has revealed that ‘…no-one’s really talking much about the people apart from what they can be given. So these luxury apartments or £5,000 from the government… No ones really thought about them as people they are just statistics. I feel like the survivors have been forgotten about. People are fighting a lot for the deceased but not as hard for the people who are still here’.
Reece Yeboah lives underneath Grenfell Tower and sees it every morning. He is a fashion designer and young creative pursuing his dreams. He feels if Princess Diana was alive she would have come and helped the people of Grenfell. ‘My niece goes to nursery in Grenfell Tower so on the morning of the fire I took her to nursery.’ ‘We’re doing this because we’re a community and we’re doing it from our hearts but we shouldn’t have to, the council should be doing this’. I lost 4 or 5 friends in the tower, but it’s probably more, most people in the tower, I used to see them everyday.’
Pilgrim Tucker is a community organiser and campaigner. She has many years experience of working on projects aimed at amplifying the voices of local residents, service users and community members, supporting them to organise to influence decisions that affect them. She worked with Grenfell residents in 2015 to help them campaign against the refurbishment undertaken KCTMO and Rydon. Since the fire she has continued to work with residents on the Lancaster west estate that surrounds the tower.
There will be an optional donation (£5 + standard ticket) when you book. You can also donate optionally via paypal:
We will be accepting donations for the survivors of the fire who will be attending the evening. 20 million pounds was donated by the public to meet the emergency needs of the survivors, many of whom are still ill from the fire without regular food and basic clothing. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council have imposed eligibility criteria which prevent or delay survivors claiming money in many cases. For example to receive the ‘Fresh Start’ grant of £10,000, survivors must be in permanent accommodation, which they are not.
Nearly all of the 250 families are in temporary accommodation as the permanent accommodation offered is unsuitable or not ready. The small percentage of donations that have been given out for the most part have been awarded to community organisations.
We would encourage you to donate to the fund at the screening to help them get on their feet during this uncertain period of their lives.
The Frontline Charitable Trust is a not-for-profit organisation.
]]>The total running time of the evening will be 85 minutes.
Things I Heard on Wednesdays (Egypt)
Illustrated by family pictures and the personal stories of his relatives, filmmaker Abu Bakr Shawky takes us on a lively journey through modern Egyptian history. This photographic documentary shows the strong bond tying human lives with the history of the nation.
Director: Abu Bakr Shawky | Duration: 9′ | Year:2012
Kiev (UA) President Yanukovych’s decision to pull out of a treaty with the EU in late November sparked anti-government protests in Kiev, Ukraine. Filmmakers Oleksandr Techynskyi and Aleksey Solodunov chronicled the increasingly tense protests on Independence Square. This is a raw account of the events on 20 and 21 February 2014. Directors: Oleksandr Techynskyi & Aleksey Solodunov | Duration: 5′ | Year: 2014
Aus Dem Auge (Germany)
An enormous concrete building constructed during the Nazi era reminds us of the architectural absurdity of national-socialism. This abandoned cathedral got lost and forgotten somewhere in a loophole of history. This cinematic and aesthetic film becomes a statement of critical analysis.
Director: Matthias Zuder | Duration: 11′ | Year: 2013
30% (Women and Politics in Sierra Leone) (UK)
This oil-painted animation brings to life the stories of three powerful women in postconflict Sierra Leone. Anna Cady reveals the violence and corruption these women face as they fight for fairer representation in governing their country.
Director: Anna Cady | Duration: 11’| Year: 2013
Lost on the Roof of the World (US)
The Wakhan Corridor in eastern Afghanistan is tucked between the Hindu Kush mountain range, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and China. This territory is home to the Wakhi and Kirghiz people who lead lives virtually unchanged for centuries, battling an extremely rugged environment without roads or amenities. Director: Frédéric Lagrange | Duration: 20′ | Year: 2013
Hear This! (NL) Ten-year-old Tristan loves football. His biggest wish is for his father to be his team’s coach. The club says his father would never be a good coach because he is deaf. Tristan thinks that’s nonsense. His father is a brilliant football player; he even plays for the Dutch national team for the deaf. Director: Soulaima El Khaldi | Duration: 15′ | Year: 2013
Sayadeen (UK) Forced to fish within a three mile sea frontier, the fishermen of Gaza are struggling to survive. While supplies are dwindling, they risk everything to feed their families.
Director: Murat Gökmen | Duration: 13′ | Year: 2013
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Filmmaker Chloe Ruthven’s grandparents were aid workers in Palestine. Growing up, she avoided getting too involved in the subject, recalling how mention of it made all the adults in her life angry. Inspired by a book written by her grandmother about the aid projects in Palestine, Ruthven explores the effects of foreign aid and the potential damage the continued reliance may have for the future.
Along the way she meets Lubna Masarwa, a forthright Palestinian woman. She not only becomes her driver, guide and fixer, but also offers a rare insight into the complex cultural and political situation on the ground. Masarwa speaks frankly of her distaste and distrust of foreign aid, something that lies uneasy with Ruthven as she seeks to find the lasting benefits of the work her grandparents supported.
What begins as a quest to better grasp her family history, turns into an emotional account of two women trying to understand one another and a unique joining of the acutely personal and complexly political. Interviews with international aid workers, Palestinian project managers, Western volunteers, local farmers and videos of her grandparents at the time, illustrate the complexity of the situation.
Directed by Chloe Ruthven
Duration: 75′
Year: 2013
Jawed Taiman‘s award winning film, Addicted in Afghanistan, which screened at Frontline on 13 September, is beautiful and utterly bleak. The documentary follows the lives of two young boys, best friends Zahir and Jabar, through the streets of Kabul. The film moves between their sober, childish hilarity and the painful grips of their heroin addiction, which they repeatedly try to beat in a city devastated by war and poverty.
The film’s mood is one of hopelessness. The boys, who guess their age to be between 16 and 17 at the beginning of the film, have been using since they were as young as eight-years-old. And despite their families’ encouragement to get treatment, they are surrounded by addicts: mother, father, uncle, younger sister. Such addiction has become endemic in Kabul and wider Afghanistan where over one million Afghans are estimated to be addicted to drugs, especially heroin. And up to 40% of these addicts are women and children.
After the screening, producer Sharron Ward, was at the Frontline Club to answer question as was Taiman via Skype from Kabul.
Photo by Chris King
Ward explained that they were originally in Kabul to make a different story, another underreported problem of HIV, which is on the increase due to intravenous drug users. Taiman said that although poppies have been grown in Afghanistan for centuries, it was previously exported to Pakistan, Iran and Europe, but that heroin production has increased since the Taliban lost control of the country.
“I’ve travelled to more than 17 provinces and everywhere I went the land was flourishing with poppy fields…. After the Soviets left, you could find one or two heroin addicts on the streets of Kabul, but it wasn’t very common, but now it’s very much a part of the Afghan people’s lives. This is the entire country’s problem now and it is not getting better.” — Jawed Taiman
In answer to a question as to how such young, impoverished boys can afford a $9-a-day heroin habit, Ward said: “There’s another darker issues, which is that a lot of the kids and particularly boys, engage in child prostitution.”
Taiman‘s frustration at the state’s failure to try and help and protect its people is clear in his lament for Afghanistan, and will be heard in his upcoming film, Voice of a Nation: My Journey Through Afghanistan. But he is not without hope.
“People of Afghanistan are hopeful. The city is beautiful… People are unsure what is going to happen post-2012 when the troops are going to leave so everybody is in a confused state. But I’m hopeful that Kabul will be as beautiful as Paris and London.” — Jawed Taiman
This reference to a famous Afghan song, which rebuffs the European capitals in favour of the homeland, was embraced by an Afghan woman in audience:
“The song very much reflects the feelings of the entire Afghan people. For all Afghans nothing can replace Afghanistan. As an Afghan, there is nothing that can be compared: those empty streets, those very dirty, filthy, dusty roads, and raggedy people – there is something there that you cannot find anywhere else and that is Afghanistan.”
Photo by Chris King
]]>This award-winning documentary tells the timeless story of two addicted teenagers, 15-year-old Jabar and 14-year-old Zahir and how their families have been ravaged by drugs.
Director Jawed Taiman who followed these two teenagers over the course of two years gives a heartbreaking glimpse into their lives including their failed attempts to become clean.
Almost all the boys’ family members are drug users, but the generations have different justifications for their addictions. While Jabar and Zahir blame the Americans for their drug abuse, Zahirs mother blames the Taliban for hers. Addicted in Afghanistan not only tells the very personal stories of Jabar and Zahir, but also sheds a light on the broader and deeply-rooted drug problem in today’s Afghanistan.
Director: Jawed Taiman
Duration: 75′
Year: 2009
Well known as one of the world’s leading producers of heroin, Afghanistan has over a million drug addicts, many of them children.
This award-winning documentary tells the timeless story of two addicted teenagers, 15-year-old Jabar and 14-year-old Zahir and how their families have been ravaged by drugs.
Director Jawed Taiman who followed these two teenagers over the course of two years gives a heartbreaking glimpse into their lives including their failed attempts to become clean.
Almost all the boys’ family members are drug users, but the generations have different justifications for their addictions. While Jabar and Zahir blame the Americans for their drug abuse, Zahirs mother blames the Taliban for hers. Addicted in Afghanistan not only tells the very personal stories of Jabar and Zahir, but also sheds a light on the broader and deeply-rooted drug problem in today’s Afghanistan.
Director: Jawed Taiman
Duration: 75′
Year: 2009
When Israeli activists arrive to protest the takeover of the East Jerusalem half of Mohammed El Kurd’s home, the Palestinian teenager comes of age in the face of continuous tension and unexpected cooperation in his backyard.
My Neighbourhood goes beyond the headlines that normally dominate discussions of Jerusalem and captures the rarely heard voices of those striving for a shared future in the city.
The screening of this 25-minute documentary will be followed by an extended Q&A with award-winning director Julia Bacha and Executive Director of Just Vision Ronit Avni. During the Q&A video portraits taken from the Home Front series will also be shown.
Directed by: Julia Bacha
Co-directed by: Rebekah Wingert-Jabi
Year: 2012
Running Time: 25′
In partnership with:
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For the birth of his fourth son, Palestinian villager Emad Burnat bought his first camera. This is also the moment a separation barrier is being built in his village Bil’in. The self-taught cameraman begins filming the events around him – and ends up with five broken video cameras. The footage of each of them tells a different part of the story of his village’s non-violent resistance to the Israeli army.
Despite the pleas from his wife who fears reprisals, Emad keeps on filming. The result is an intensely powerful, first-hand and deeply personal document about one village’s struggle against violence and oppression.
This screening is in partnership with London Open City Docs Fest (21-24 June)
Awards:
World Cinema Direction Award, Sundance 2012
Prix Louis-Marcorelles,, Cinema du Reel 2012
The Stephan Jarl Documentary award, Tempo Film Festival 2012
The Best Director Award, One World Human Rights Film Festival 2012
The Golden Butterfly Award: A Matter of Act Competition, Movies That Matter 2012
Special Jury Award and Audience Award, IDFA 2011
Directed by: Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
Year: 2011
Running Time: 90′
In partnership with:
