Hot Property is a comedy about what you read in British papers every day – the housing crisis. This particularly effective to Londoners, who will likely identify with Melody Munro (MyAnna Buring). She is a corporate spy who spends everything she has on her lavish lifestyle, until one day she loses her job and is threatened with eviction. No more credit cards, no more car. When she takes out her statement from a cashing point, the message is “£10 is all you have, you tw**”.

Melody vows to defend her rented home at all costs. The real estate agent is appropriately named The Charlatans, and not in reference to the Manchester band. Her much younger boyfriend Harmony Ambrose (Tom Rhys Harries) is a young playboy and chef whose dishes are awful. He is still trying to find a spot under the sun, and obviously cannot help her. Melody then turns to her brother (Sam Philips). His advice is: “Why don’t you go to a job centre like a normal person?”.

Melody is not a normal person, of course. In a fraction of a second, different solutions come to her mind: she will sell her organs; she will turn into an escort girl; she will sabotage The Charlatans. MyAnna’s versatility in parodying the fast and mean hipster culture is remarkable. One has to be creative and to think fast in order to make a living in London. After all, its landmark is an immense clock. No time to waste, or the city will devour you.

This feature is an entirely independent production made by awarded producer and director Max McGill, who had his short movie Half Hearted (2010) recently selected for BFI Archive. Producer Campbell Beaton began Fortune Films in 2005 over a £1 bet that anyone could make films. Such a bizarre business mission could only lead to a disaster, one would think. Not the case: Hot Property closes the 5th LOCO London Comedy Film Festival, which runs from 20th April to May 1st. Click here for more information about the event.

Britain has a strong tradition of comedies playing with the social gap between the rich and poor, and this is no exception. The social commentary in Hot Property is hissing and sizzling. DMovies believes that this is hot stuff for aspiring comedy makers.

Watch the film trailer below:

The documentary The Pearl of Africa portrays the life of 28-year-old transgender Ugandan Cleopatra Kambugu. She was biologically born a man, but already in her early years begins wearing female clothes and identifying as a woman. She found the support of her lifelong partner and mother and, against all odds, lived a relatively hassle free life in her home country. Until the local tabloid Red Pepper decide to “denounce” and “gay-shame” her, forcing Cleopatra into hiding.

The film then follows her footsteps as she flies to Thailand for a sex-reassignment surgery. This is the most powerful and intimate part of the film, which captures the moment she woke up from surgery as well as her first steps towards recovery. After the painful intervention, she moves with her partner to Kenya, where she now fights to return to her home nation and to be recognised as the first transsexual woman in the country’s history.

Homosexuality is a taboo in Uganda, to say the least. The country actively and consistently persecutes LGBTI people. In countries such as China there is often tacit acceptance and complicity as long as the homosexual marries a partner of the opposite sex and lives a dual life. Such possibility does not seem to exist in Uganda, where the mere suspicion of homosexuality is often a trigger for social convulsion.

Five years ago, British radio and TV presenter Scott Mills traveled to Uganda for the BBC documentary The World’s Worst Place to be Gay, where he talks to locals and politicians about their views of homosexuality without revealing that he is gay. At the end of the film, he interviews the legislator who proposed a new Draconian law punishing not just homosexuals but also those who “harboured” them. Halfway through the interview, Mills suddenly reveals that he is gay, immediately fleeing to airport and leaving the country in fear of persecution.

There are many homophobic countries in the world, particularly in Africa and Asia. However, many of them are more accepting of transgender and transsexual people. Such is the case in Iran, where the government even pays for sex-assignment surgery. In Albania, some women are encouraged to live as transsexuals (find out more by clicking here). Uganda, however, is so deeply prejudiced that they do not even bother to make the distinction. To most people in the country, LGBTI people are all “gay” and do not deserve a place in society. Many believe that they shouldn’t even be allowed to live.

The arguments against homosexuality and prominent in the first half of the movie. Local figures and politicians argue that LGBTI people should not be entitled human rights because they are “human wrongs”, that homosexuality is rather a personal choice and a sexual “disorientation”. Some quote the Old Testament of the Bible in order to support their claims. Others argue that homosexuality can be “learned” and “unlearned”.

Prejudice is always rooted in ignorance, it seems. Firstly, in the Red Pepper’s failure to distinguish between gender dysphoria (when the individual does not identify with their birth gender, such as in the case of Cleopatra) and homosexuality. Secondly, in the misguided belief that homosexuality is a personal choice. They also seem to think that it is a byproduct of toxic international influence, and not something inherent to humans.

Swedish director Jonny Von Wallström crafted a bold and touching picture of a truly unparalleled personal story of love and fight against prejudice. It will serve as inspiration for LGBTI people living in the 79 countries that still criminalise homosexuality. On the other hand, the film relies too heavily on music in order to achieve dramatism and the result is sometimes a little bit stagy and artificial.

The Pearl of Africa will premiere at the next Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival later this month in Toronto. The film is currently seeking distributors in many countries across the world – for more information, just click here here. The film trailer is viewable below:

The Divide tells the story of seven individuals striving for a better life in the modern-day UK and US — two countries where the top 0.1% owns as much wealth as the bottom 90%.

The British documentary is a sobering piece of research on a very modern problem: the UK and the US have achieved the highest level of economic inequality since 1928. By juxtaposing testimonies from rich and poor in both countries with economical analysis of commentators such as the former economic adviser to Margaret Thatcher, Sir Alan Budd, historian Sir Max Hastings, philosopher Noam Chomsky and epidemiologist Sir Michael Marmot, The Divide successfully presents the world we live in. After all, documentaries are a good excuse to spy on other people’s life and compare them.

Despite not dealing with any major corruption scandals, the film raises some urgent questions: why do those two countries attract a record number of immigrants? How did capitalism delude generation after generation? And why is wealth so tempting?

The interviews clarify that income inequality affects all by skewing the economy in favour of a fraction of a population, with negative consequences for people’s health, life expectancy and quality of life.

A well-educated American psychologist epitomises the failure of capitalism in his country. He dresses to impress his rich clients claiming “I am looking good; I am dressed for success”. He has no time for his wife and kids, but he states “there is really no option”. As a psychologist, he would be more balanced. He should have learned how to stop letting social and economic pressures mandate his life.

A Wall Street analyst concludes that those aspects of inequality are not a reflection of capitalism per se, but rather a failure to implement it correctly. Sentences like: “it is ok to break the law if it is going to bring profit to the company” show that capitalism has become a pathological caricature of itself. It is funny to watch the rich driving golf cars inside private condos in Sacramento, in a new and vulgar symbol of ostentation.

The film launched a campaign to take action and make a difference. Inspired by a testimony of a middle-aged woman who works under a 0-hour contract at Walmart, the campaign believes that everyone can do something to improve the situation. You can click here in order to watch the video and join the campaign.

All in all, The Divide succeeds in denouncing the well-known dirty face of capitalism plus supporting it with convincing data, but it does not reveal anything new. The film will have a limited theatre release April 22nd, followed by general release on May 31st. Watch the film trailer below:

Finally Jeff Nichols (Mud, 2012; Take Shelter, 2011) finished and launched his first feature produced by a big studio. Of course there is a lingering fear that Warner Bros could kill off his creativity, particularly because this is a sci-fi movie, and sci-fi flicks are often highly prescriptive and formulaic. But Nichols maintains full control as an auteur. Two of his regulars – Michael Shannon and Sam Shepard – are on board. In addition, he has used cinematographer Adam Stone for years, while Ben Nichols had already signed the soundtracks of Mud and Take Shelter. Working with people he knew ensured Nichols remained in his comfort zone, even when money talks.

Midnight Special is about a palpable emotion that is transferred to the audience. In essence it is about facing up to the fact that your children will eventually leave you, regardless of your plans. Alton Meyer (Jaeden Lieberher) is a kid in search of his own identity. He knows that he is different from other kids, but he is quite unsure where he belongs. He is often sick, he cannot bear sunlight, he can tune in with radio statics and reproduce the announcer’s speech. Most importantly, he knows dark secrets about the US government.

The opening shot was on Nichols’ mind since the making of Take Shelter. In just a couple of sequences, the directors raises a number of questions which keep audiences hooked until the end of the film. What is going on is a mystery. Why do they wake up in the middle of the night to travel? Is it a kidnapping? If so, why is the kid so kind to his kidnapper? Where are they going to? Why are the FBI and an unnamed church chasing him?

The plot mixes mysticism, copper action and science-fiction with a gentle dose of sensibility. Nichols always finds a way to reach both the heart and the eyes.

What Midnight Special special is that light drives the narrative. It is on the boy’s eyes, it is on the car headlights, it is on the new alien landscapes on Earth. The visual effects are not intrusive. They are an integral part of the story. In many Hollywood sci-fi movies, the Earth is devastated, the end is nigh, and there is plenty of high-tech machinery. Nichols does not raise those issues. He instead centers on the father and son relationship.

Nichols says: “I hate unmotivated camera moves. Every time you move the camera you change the point of view”. These changes here are subtle and delicate. Nichols confesses he watched a Spanish short movie called The 3rd and the 7th (Alex Roman, 2014), which inspired the visual effects in his movie. Both films aim to reproduce the pace of growth in nature.

Midnight Special has been compared to Steven Spielberg’s E.T. (1982) and Close Encounters of Third Kind (1977). In reality, Nichols’ unconventional elements make his film far more powerful and effective.

Victoria is a ingenious low-budget German movie that has sparked a major buzz in the cinema world. In February, American director Spike Lee expressed his wonderment at how such a complex movie could be made in just one single take (at the press conference of Chi-Raq).

It took three attempts in order to get it right. The logistics were meticulously planned as the crew had to shoot in 22 different locations. There were no airbrushing and special effects, differently from the single-shot-look movie Birdman (Alejandro Iñárritu, 2014). The shooting started at 4:20 am because they wanted to get the sun rise in the end.

This is not the first time a director attempts this. The most acclaimed example is Russian Ark (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2002), which took seven months of rehearsal and 15 years to get the script ready. It was also in the third attempt that Sokurov finally got it right, due to sound problems in the first two. In 2007, Spiros Stathoulopoulos filmed PVC-I, a true story about a makeshift bomb placed around the neck of an extortion victim. And before that, in 1948 when digital technology was still a desire, Alfred Hitchcock did Rope with only 8 cuts. The British filmmaker edited the film so that the cuts seemed invisible to the audience.

None of this technological achievements would be praiseworthy if the films weren’t good enough. Victoria is jaw-dropping, a sublime and touching experience. Schipper knows all about it: “I made a film without cuts but that doesn’t really matter. Watching a film in the movie theatre is a highly emotional experience regardless of whether it has a lot of cuts or none.” The greatest achievement of Schipper when he decided for a single take was to give up control and trust the actors and crew. It is alluring to witness the joy of the main actors in scene. Laia Costa (Victoria) and Frederick Lau (Sonne) are incredibly charismatic and convincing.

Leaving a Berlin nightclub late one night, Victoria, a Spanish girl, meets Sonne and his friends. They convince her to join them in a different ride through Berlin, that includes stealing beer from an off-licence shop and enjoying the view of the city in a rooftop. But not all is joy. The bunch of German boys eventually forge a dangerous bond with Victoria. This circumstance raises questions about freedom, youth and greed, thereby transforming the movie into a gripping experience.

Victoria has similarities with Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998). In this German thriller, a woman needs to obtain DM 100,000 in 20 minutes to save her boyfriend’s life. Tykwer explores the audience’s emotion to the limit: it feels like the viewer is running with Lola for two hours. In Victoria, pace is controlled and balanced. This is evident in the chase scenes, but in the nightclub scenes there is an extra layer of complexity, as viewers and characters listen to different music. The latter are clubbing while the former listen to chill-out music, in a soundtrack signed by Nils Frahm.

Music determines one of the emotionally profound moments of the film. Here the ‘Mephisto Waltz’ by Franz Liszt stresses Victoria’s biggest deception in life. Her confession comes quite out of the blue. She tells it to a complete stranger, and perhaps this is why it is easy and painful at the same time.

In short, Victoria is a reminder that in life its is necessary to be impulsive and to improvise. Even when everything is planned accurately – including the process of shooting a film – impromptu solutions can bring out beautiful results.

The film is showing in the best cinemas across Europe and the world now. You can also purchase the film for watching online by clicking here. Watch the trailer below:

The main tool of an actor is the body. It is with the body than an actor communicates, much more than with words. A dancer likewise. So it is natural that a documentary on a burlesque dance and theater company would emphasise corporal feats. What Femme Brutal brings to discussion is that unfit bodies too can be sexy and desired.

The film opens with a series of presentation of the queer-feminist artists behind the Austrian Club Burlesque Brutal. They created stage personas and perform exquisite acts exploring their sexuality. Although the names of their characters are quite explicit – Cunt, Madame Cameltoe -, there is hardly any full nudity. The documentary gradually explores the actors and how and why they joined the company.

Most of the performers were in search of an audience they could identify with. By revealing that they couldn’t fit in society, they use art as a means to express their personal process of coming out. The problem is that they intentionally reduce their public to other lesbians. Their audience is their mirror. They even have control over who’s attending. There is no confrontation and the performances finish as a mere act of narcissism. Performers do not have to conquer the audience; they already know what they came for. They are their partners.

What is the point of coming out when you only show your identity to a niche? One of the performers affirms that every intelligent woman will sooner or later develop her lesbian side. That is offensive to heterosexual women.

Nevertheless, Femme Brutal has some achievements. The concept and production of the show are made by the hands and minds of standup comediennes. In the history of comedy, women are much less numerous probably because still it is less accepted that women can make jokes about sex. The film Live from New York! (Bao Nguyen, 2015) reveals that very few women in the New Yorker TV show could become standup artists, in a testament of the difficulties that women face in this field.

The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, 2014) is another recent production that explores the feminine quest for pleasure in a homosexual relationship. Like Femme Brutal, it reveals aspects of sadomasochistic habits, suggesting that women still have a long way to go in their search for pleasure. Black masks and whips relate to bondage and discipline, restraint and punishment. In The Duke of Burgundy, this is deeply connected to love; in Femme Brutal, it is merely an act.

Gina Pane is the strongest influence on the Club Burlesque Brutal troupe. Her performance includes extreme self-harm, distinguishing her from other female body artists of the 1970s. She expresses in essence the vulnerability of human body.

Femme Brutal probably won’t be shown in Cinemark circuit but you can follow them on their Facebook community (just click here) It will probably show in the European LGBT circuit soon.

This is the film trailer:

Twentieth Century Fox Films releases The Last Man on The Moon this week in the UK, a documentary about Eugene Cernan, a former Nasa astronaut and Navy captain who landed on the surface of the Moon. He went to space three times: as a pilot of Gemini 9A in June 1966, as a lunar module pilot of Apollo 10 in May 1969, and as a commander of Apollo 17 in December 1972.

Hollywood consistently invests in films about journey to the stars, in sci-fi films, in documentaries or in fiction based in true facts. During Obama’s tenure, the titles included Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013), Oblivion (Joseph Kosinski, 2013), Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014), The Martian (Ridley Scott, 2015), Men in Black II (Barry Sonnenfeld, 2002), the Star Trek series, the Star Wars series and many other. The US seem to enjoy spending money in space sagas more than any other country. So what is the relation between Nasa and Hollywood?

The answer is: both Nasa and Hollywood are deeply political establishments.

Politics in Hollywood started early, with the FBI ordering secret agents to keep a close eye on Hollywood ‘radicals’ already in 1918. In the postwar era, the influence of cinema grew further, and Hollywood pundits became involved in politics in different ways. Actor Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980, and the also actor Arnold Schwarzenegger became Governor of California in 2003.

The space programme is a recurring theme in American politics, and it’s at the heart of American voters. President Obama cancelled the Constellation Program, which inflicted damage on his image. Hillary Clinton says she “really supports the space program”; she even wanted to be an astronaut when she was 14. Bernie Sanders has been criticised for voting to decrease Nasa’s budget. And Donald Trump, ambiguously affirms, “I think it’s wonderful. I want to rebuild our infrastructure first”.

The Last Man on The Moon conveys a message of invincibility. Captain Eugene Cernan speaks out frankly about it: “From 22 to 27, I was invincible. I had a big ego. No one has ever been to orbit and we were challenged to go to the Moon.” Not even the mission failures — including a training jet crash in 1966 and a spacecraft test fire in 1967 killing 5 astronauts — dented Cernan’s quest for fame. He admits he was selfish, not a good husband or a good father. Nevertheless, he affirms he had to act that way, otherwise he wouldn’t succeed.

This film has no subversive content per se. Mark Craig took five years to bring it to the big screen. It shows a collection of historical images searched at Kennedy Space Center, Nasa, the National Flight Academy and even at the London Science Museum. But clearly its purpose is to endure an image that “America is invincible” when focused on “progress and technology”.

Mark Craig took the astronaut back to a number of locations that featured previously in his life, in a clear attempt to trigger his insights and memories. What comes out of it is a passion to achieve a certain goal, whatever the cost. In terms of narrative, The Last Man on The Moon stands for a classical kind of cinema. The plot goes: equilibrium, disruption of the equilibrium, re-establish the equilibrium. The first and the last scenes show Cerne in his ranch in Texas. The disruption, of course, is the challenge to conquer the Moon.

The classical narrative structure usually presents one of the two plot lines: one involving romance and other portraying a mission or a quest, a work, a war. The passage of time in the documentary certifies that Cerne’s choices were correct; his tenacity enabled him to achieve his goals. There is a moment in which Cerne is called for a secret meeting in a hotel, where he finds out that all other guests have checked in under the same alias. These tricks are justified in the name of a higher purpose: the US are proud to display their flag and conquer territories. What is ironic is that the symbol of a flag raised in the Moon is not visible anywhere on Earth.

The Last Man on The Moon is out in cinemas this Friday April 8th, with a special Nationwide Live Q&A with Captain Eugene Cernan on April 11th. For more information please click here, and don’t forget to watch the film trailer below:

Describing When We Are Together We Can Be Everywhere is queer erotica is an understatement. This low-budget documentary shot by Berlin-based filmmaker Marit Ostberg features very graphic lesbian sex almost incessantly, making it indeed very pornographic. But does the film have any artistic merit, or does the real sex discredit and overrule all possibilities to make good cinema?

DMovies will often raise this question.

When We Are Together We Can Be Everywhere comes with an artistic veneer that enabled the film to enter the LGBT circuit as queer erotica. The film is populated with poetry and indeed beautiful indoors and outdoors scenes of seedy and derelict corners of Berlin. The sex also feels very touching and genuine. The moaning, wailing and facial expressions of the nearly all-female cast will linger with audiences because they are utterly genuine.

The film starts out elegantly focusing on sounds and body curves but eventually veers towards the more pornographic money shots (the technical term for close-up penetration) in the second half. At first, it seems to have universal appeal exploring diverse sexualities (including a female-to-male transexual), but it then becomes an hermetically closed lesbian film.

It is praiseworthy that the film – and perhaps lesbian culture altogether – embraces several types: small, fat, transsexual, butch and effeminate. Male gay culture, on the other hand, is more concerned with beauty stereotypes, often seeking the mainstream type (muscular and virile). In When We Are Together We Can Be Everywhere bodies are neither airbrushed and sex is never formulaic. Some people may find this uncomfortable because they are not used to such freedom, and they forget that the human body isn’t always perfect and photogenic.

Making a lesbian porn is per se a subversive act. Porn is normally aimed at a male audience, and the absence of the male gaze here is refreshing and reassuring (well, at least for lesbians). Most societies frown upon women having pleasure in sex. The UK is no exception: it introduced new pornography laws last year banning female ejaculation (but not male). Lawmakers don’t want to see girls having fun, it seems.

The film features a electronic and sexy soundtrack by Swedish act The Knife, including the songs ‘Old Dreams Waiting To Be Realized’ and ‘A Cherry On Top’ from the album Shaking The Habitual, as well as a film edit of the frontwoman Karin Dreijer’s solo effort ‘Lives Worth Grieving’.

The 2.5-splat rating above (“mostly clean movie”) does not refer to the amount of pornographic content of the movie, but instead to the level of innovation and taboo-breaking elements. Click here in order to understand our “dirty rating system” in more detail.

Have your say, too! Do you think that real sex in a film is unnecessary and exploitative, or do you think that it is an entirely genuine device. Please vote on our poll and help to answer this controversial and divisive issue.

The Berlin Porn Film Festival taking place every October is a good showcase and discussion forum for such topic and films, as the Festival tends to avoid formulaic pornography in favour of more creative feats.

When We Are Together We Can Be Everywhere is showing this Thursday April 8th at Eyes Wide Open in Brighton, as part of the Celluloid Perversions Programme, celebrating the best of queer erotica. Visit our calendar for more information about the event, and click here in order to watch the NSFW film trailer.

Already in the first minute of the movie, Couple in a Hole transports audiences to a strange world strictly ruled by nature. John and Karen dwell in a hole in the woods somewhere in the Pyrenees, where they have established their own routines in order to avoid contact with other humans at all costs. Karen (Kate Dickie, from The Witch and Game of Thrones – click here in order to read her dirty profile) is a woman turned into a wild animal. She crawls, almost never leaves the hole, does not speak and eats what John (Paul Higgins) brings to the cave — mostly living insects. The only sign that she once belonged to a civilisation is her wedding ring.

Gradually, John becomes concerned with Karen’s odd behaviour and encourages her to take little strolls outside. But first she has to stand up. The scenes capture an extraordinary physical performance, particularly of Dickie, who shows how strong and resilient a suffering woman can be. Deep inside, she knows she has to stand up and leave the hole, but she refuses it. Her attempt to walk is a unwilling act to please her husband. Her performance is pure physical theatre.

Eventually John decides to make some changes to their lives, and so he approaches a nearby village in search of food. It then becomes clear that living in a hole was the couple’s choice. It was the way they found to grieve their child’s death. Karen’s mobility problems are a consequence of this, the psychological sequel of a very tragic fatality. A spider stings Karen, triggering John to leave the hole in search of medicine. At this point John begins to contemplate social reintegration, which threatens the life of a couple in isolation. Karen feels betrayed.

Kate Dickie talked to DMovies about this experience: “We had to stop the shootings because Tom suffered an accident (he injured his ankle and the shoot was postponed four weeks)”. That is when life plays a trick to artists and helps them develop their characters more thoroughly. Interruption was part of the character’s story as well as of the movie itself.

French film theorist Andre Bazin explains that “there are directors who put faith in the image and others who put faith in reality”. Tom Geens can belong to both categories. Images in Couple in a Hole are strong, representing the basic instinct for survival and comprehension of sorrow. Karen’s suffering can only lead to desperate measures, as the final sequence reveals.

The mind frames reality. In other words, reality is what you believe can happen. John and Karen’s reality is that they cannot find solace, regardless of where they are. Nature merely reflects this mindset. If one is in harmony, then nature is harmonious. If one’s mind is troubled, nature will challenge them even further.

The absence of conversation in the movie gives room to a horrific soundtrack that establishes a dialogue with nature. Composed by Geoff Barrow (from the British band Portishead), the soundtrack of Couple in a Hole reflects the couple’s disturbing routine. The song ‘Silence’ by Portishead explains: “Tempted in our minds/ Tormented in silence”.

Another recent British production, The Survivalist (Stephen Fingleton, 2015; click here in order to accede to the review), also deals with the issue of living in isolation, supported by an equally creepy soundtrack. Couple in a Hole will be release in cinema theatres on April 8th. Below is the film trailer:

Scum is a British drama film portraying the brutality of life inside a British borstal (the now extinct juvenile delinquent institutions). The film was originally made for the BBC in 1979, but was never broadcast due to the graphic violence depicted. The director made a watered-down version of the film in 1983, when it was finally exhibited on Channel 4.

Morality activist Mary Whitehouse campaigned vigorously against the release of Scum, even prosecuting Channel 4 in a High Court. She eventually lost the battle. The film was first released on VHS in the UK in 1983, and it was immediately caught up in the UK video nasty controversy (a moral crusade against graphic content on VHS). Despite the changes to the original film, Clarke’s masterpiece remains one of the most shocking and controversial British films in history due to its realistic depiction of racism, extreme violence, rape, suicide, verbal and psychological abuse.

In the film, Carlin (Ray Winstone) is a new inmate in a British borstal, in an undisclosed location. The violent and assertive young man quickly befriends Archer (Mick Ford), an eloquent intellectual who uses his knowledge in order to challenge the borstal staff and their superiors. Banks (John Blundell), the current “Daddy” (the inmate who “runs” the Borstal) is seeking Carlin for a fight in order to reassert his superiority. In the original film Carlin was a homosexual, and his own internalised homophobia a likely trigger for his violent demeanour – but this was removed from the 1983 version.

Very few films have dealt with institutionalised violence in a confined system as candidly as Scum. Stacey Dooley has recently denounced prison boot camps in the US in her BBC documentaries, while Peter Mullan exposed abuse in the Magdalene Laundries in The Magdalene Sisters (2002), but neither has provided a portrait as bloodied, twisted and disturbing of a rehabilitation institution as Scum has.

Violence is the only real currency in Scum, and it is only to be used be the officials. Violent inmates are a subversion of the establishment and therefore must be punished, which is the case with Carlin. Knowledge and intellectual rhetoric are not acceptable as capital, and so Archer is consistently punished for exposing his ideas. He mentions Dostoevsky’s classics ‘Crime and Punishment’ and ‘The Idiot’, and he reflects on the value of the truth and other philosophical concepts to no avail. Archer is inherently content in his non-intelligible intellectualism.

Carlin, Archer and Banks are family names, and the youths are often identified by a four-digit number. The Home Office mandated that they are never addressed by their given name. These young men live in a prison and have to work in conditions analogue to slavery. They have been stripped of all individuality and dignity, and left to function as automaton in a society which chose to turn a blind eye to their plight.

Breaking the news of the death of someone’s relative is probably one of the most difficult and challenging communications tasks anyone could ever encounter. But not in Scum. Inmate Toyne (Herbert Norville) finds out that his wife Penny has died from a member of staff in the most casual and careless way. Life in the borstals is so brutal and callous, that it simply does not allow time and space for mourning.

Alan Clarke’s film exposes the hypocrisy and contradictions of a failed prison system that did not habilitate its prisoners. Instead, it turned them into insensitive and hardened criminals. Borstals may sound like a far-removed reality because they were permanently shut down in 1982. However, there are many modern-day prison facilities where prisoners are left in a legal limbo, and are vulnerable to systematic abuse – such as the immigration removal centres and war prisons. And suicide in British prisons is still rife, at 82 last year alone. Sometimes horror is not as distant as it seems.

Scum is out on BritBox on Thursday, July 2nd (2022). On BFI Player on Monday, September 11th (2023).