Dockyards, Demos and New Directions at Gloucester Guildhall

From Friday 3 December, and throughout December, Gloucester Guildhall is pleased to be showcasing pivotal moments of social and political change as recorded in the film archives, and in the lived experiences of our city’s residents. When you visit our cinema this month, you’ll have the chance to watch the short film Dockyards, Demos and New Directions before some of our features (see www.gloucesterguildhall.co.uk for details).

Bristol-based expanded cinema curators and Pervasive Media Studio residents Compass Presents will facilitate this project, which sees local Gloucester residents curating video clips from the film archives based at Media Archive for Central England. Using the UK’s waterways as a focus, Dockyards, Demos and New Directions recognises the migration stories, industrial and political histories, and focal points for change that the city’s waterways represent.

Compass Presents director, Tara Sachdeva, said ‘We’ve been working with archive film for a number of years and find it's a rich visual storytelling medium that people can easily identify with. As well as celebrating the hidden gems in our regional and city archives, the idea behind this project is to recognise some of the limitations of those collections, and to work with local people to identify stories unrepresented on archive film and capture those as well. The archive films chosen by the group that you see in your local independent cinema reflect their own lens and curatorial choices, but also work in conversation with the audio tour that includes their own personal stories.” 

Accompanying these screenings will be an audio tour, including stories from local people speaking about their own personal memories of the city and its history. This audio tour will be available to listen to on your phone as part of your ticket, following a walking route along a nearby waterway. 

From picket lines and protests, to city celebrations and changes to industry or housing, this collection and audio tour will consider the ever shifting identity of the city that we know and love. 

For more information and to download audio tour walks, please click here.