As footage of ICE raids and reactionary protests dominate global headlines, Felipe Bastos Sierra’s documentary ‘Let’s Go to Kenmur Street’ plays an important role in contextualizing Scotland’s history and recent community action in the face of uniform overreach. Documenting an impromptu demonstration in a sleepy Glasgow enclave in 2021, the film combines archival footage, re-enactments, social media clips and contemporary interviews to illuminate the fabric of a neighborhood that comes together to protect the two, even as tensions rise between people and state.
Five minutes seems an eternity in montage time, but the film’s lengthy introduction boldly proclaims its historical scope. Its opening frames – old photographs of women’s suffrage, sketched maps of slave routes, television footage of 70s trade union rallies against Thatcher’s government – help to integrate modern (and apparently ordinary) citizens into the extraordinary political traditions and sordid histories that we all secretly carry. By the time the central buildings fade into view and the British Immigration Enforcement Service van sits outside the unassuming brownstone, Bastos Sierra and editor Colin Mony are already cheering the viewer on.
The predominantly Muslim Pollockshields area of Glasgow was the victim of a Home Office “dawn raid” on the morning of Eid al-Fitr, a holy day in the Islamic calendar. The intrusion feels pointed, but a light disturbance begins before the two Sikh immigrants, men who have lived there for more than a decade, are chased away. Interviews with residents who were there that morning, accompanied by cell phone clips from curious onlookers (on the streets and in the air), soon revealed rumors and hearsay that an anonymous man had taken great personal risk to crawl under the car to prevent it from leaving with the arrested migrants. As the day progressed, interviewees recalled that more residents from surrounding buildings joined in and stopped the van from starting, until their WhatsApp group lit up. Meanwhile, more neon-suited officers from Scotland Yard arrive to assist their fellow officers.
The strength of “Minna de Kenmure Gai e” is that it gradually builds up a rhythm. Most of its various reminiscences consist of first-hand accounts from residents, seated at a sharp angle from the interview cameras against colorful backdrops. Although their positioning seems awkward at first, it positions these average citizens as the subjects of a dignified portrait. White people and South Asians alike talk about taking action to protect their neighbors as if it were a given, but it’s not inspiring. However, some of the people who attended that day could be seen wearing coronavirus masks, and some, such as the man under the van and the nurse who reached out to check on the situation for a long time, did not appear in person. Instead, to protect their identities, big name actresses such as Emma Thompson (pushing herself under an axle) and Kate Dickie (performing as a nurse on all fours in Kenmure Street) read their words aloud during reenactments.
The wave of sit-in interviews, from lawyers and politicians to local teachers and imams, grows as rapidly and noticeably as the number of demonstrators that day. As these face-to-face crowds increase, along with heated chants and offerings of food and snacks, so too does tension between people and police. As the situation continues to accelerate towards the threat of an eruption, the film takes cleverly timed detours into historical context.
The citizens seen in “Let’s all go to Kenmure Street” are not only active and motivated, but also knowledgeable. Interviewees are thus able to articulate not only the contemporary political environment and Glaswegians’ famous (and early) support for Nelson Mandela, but also their city’s dark past as a center of the transatlantic slave trade. The filmmakers and their subjects not only connect these various dots, but also express in an exciting, essayistic way the ways in which this history is filtered into the present, and how this modern tug of war between the state and the proletariat emerges from both proud traditions and those yet to be confronted.
At the end of the day, “Let’s Fight Together” is a movie about who currently wields power and how it can be reclaimed by communities in the name of unity. Although its focus is on one corner of a large-scale skirmish, this collection of photographs of growing dissent among people who simply want to live their lives unencumbered by racist policies is incredibly energizing, as Bastos Sierra carefully captures and honors everyday people coming together to restore power to its rightful place.
