Since I am still feeling guilty about being nasty to the UN when it announced it was releasing a special song, I am delighted to hear that the GFT is doing something with music to celebrate International Women's Day that I can really support.
It isn't so much the politics of the films being shown (Traces Left looks at Glasgow art and politics in the 1930s and 1940s, and the main feature Hell Unltd is a classic anti-war number from the period of the Spanish Civil War), but the addition of a live soundtrack by Kim Moore (from Zoey van Goey) and Gareth Griffiths (out of Getting an Award From BAFTA).
Hell Unltd is a good choice for IWD: co-director Helen Biggar was a graduate of Glasgow School of Art in a period when Glasgow was a hotbed of socialism (not that much earlier, the UK government had considered martial law to break the power of The Reds on the Clyde) and socialism was an honest utopianism. And while it expressed a pacifist spirit, Hell Unltd put war into a context of recession and oppression.
In the light of the arrests made at the ATOS protest last week, the film's belief in the role of mass organisation - and that the suppression of organisation is effectively a suppression of freedom of speech - is timely.
The screening and performance will take place on International Women's Day (8 March 2013) with the intention of raising the profile of women artists and their ongoing legacy in Glasgow. It will be the key event in an evening celebrating Helen Biggar's work and recognising the contribution of women artists to political activism.
Just read about the arrests at he ATOS protest. Hope whole matter does not get out of hand.
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