Everybody to Kenmure Street
(United Kingdom, 98 min.)
Dir. Felipe Bustos Sierra
Prod. Ciara Barry, Felipe Bustos Sierra
Programme: World Cinema Documentary Competition (World Premiere)
On May 13, 2021, at dawn, UK Immigration officers removed two men from their home on Kenmure Street in the Pollokshields area of Glasgow, Scotland. It was the first day of the Muslim celebration day Eid. Residents in this working-class community noticed the men, both Sikh, being loaded into a police van and stopped in their tracks as they watched. Other onlookers messaged friends and activists until a large crowd surrounded the vehicle.
No one moved. As a group, the protesters sat down on the road to make it more difficult for the officers to shift them. One individual dove under the police van and grabbed on, making it further impossible for officers to carry out their orders. Eventually, the media arrived. Neighbours and community members became involved in an eight-hour stand-off with police that day until they accomplished their objective in preventing the arrest. It ended as a small triumph for community action, but it also raised a number of questions around immigration policies and the role of community policing.
Felipe Bustos Sierra’s Everybody to Kenmure Street is an intense ground level record of what happened that day. The protest was a spontaneous act of civil disobedience that maintains a profound relevance. The actions of that group in Scotland echo throughout the news even now, particularly with the ongoing raids on immigrant communities throughout the United States.
What many people coming to this documentary may not realize is that the actions in Glasgow on that day occurred within a certain context: namely, one of British governance. In matters such as immigration, Scotland is governed by English laws. The situation remains complicated and so too is the film. The events presented in this documentary occurred in Scotland’s most diverse neighbourhood. The police action did not coincide with the will of the people. As one protester remarked, “No one should be dragged out of their house.”
Scottish police were acting under orders from the British government, enforcing immigration laws that were created in London, a place that seems a world apart from Glasgow. Everyone to Kenmure Street immediately raises some questions: Why were the Scottish police enforcing these orders? And why would they do something so culturally insensitive as to arrest people on a Muslim holiday?
Sierra brings a number of elements into play throughout his film. It’s a mix of archive, talking heads, and vérité. This documentary unfolds in chapters: it travels back and forth in time between the Kenmure Street protest to historical events that not only shaped Scotland’s economy, but that very neighbourhood itself.
For the protest sequences, the director has a rich archive of cell phone footage from the various participants. He weaves it together with talking heads and eyewitness accounts, along with footage from broadcast news. Over the course of these segments, the editing by Colin Monie allows characters to develop as this narrative unfolds. There’s a dynamic currency within the footage and the firsthand accounts that give this documentary its verve.
But Everyone to Kenmure Street is also a hybrid film. Sierra includes dramatic re-enactments where actors (including award winning actress Emma Thompson, who acts as a producer) take the place of some of the key players that day. The faces of certain individuals in the actual footage are replaced performers, who act out the protesters’ testimony. It’s a laudable approach, but, frankly, it’s jarring and it takes us out of the immersive experience of this powerful action by the people.
By further incorporating archival footage from the Industrial era, Everybody to Kenmure Street aims to extend its considerations to the greater context in which this nation exists, namely as a piece of the British empire. Sierra shows how upper-class tycoons in England and Scotland built up manufacturing and created the urban landscape in the big cities. More importantly, he goes back to the slave trade to remind the audience of how the upper classes built up their wealth. This sets the scene for the class struggle that still exists in the UK. It’s necessary information that proves vital to understanding the circumstances behind the action on that day. It certainly prompts deeper discussions and considerations.
The trajectory of the film – going back and forth and back and forth again – does however prove clunky at times and needlessly repetitive. It’s vitally essential background information, but it is a lot to take into consideration in the time span of the film. These elements do widen the field of scope, yet further precision would help the film be more effective in these moments. The immersive experience that results from the street protest’s carefully edited sequences are the true strength of the film. These sequences are teeming with tension and turn the film into a real-life nail-biter.
That being said, Everybody to Kenmure Street is an important representation of the power of the people. It vividly presents a collective action and shows that their efforts that day were a proclamation of their will. This massive crowd of residents and activists had decided that these men should go free despite what the English government had decided. One could argue that the individuals in this community were within their rights. As a record of civil resistance, this documentary is a compelling and inspiring record of a collective spirit in action.
