Still The Enemy Within coming to a screen near you
Bad Bonobo Films announces that its highly anticipated documentary about the 1984-85 miners’ strike Still The Enemy Within and winner of this year’s International Sheffield Documentary Festival Audience Award, will be released across the UK from 3rd October 2014. The film has secured a screening in over 45 different venues- a full list can be found here
Still the Enemy Within is a unique human insight into one of Britain’s most dramatic struggles, the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike. No experts. No politicians. Thirty years on, this is the raw emotional story of the extraordinary people who drove Britain’s longest strike.
Against all the forces the government could throw at them, 160,000 coal miners took up the fight and became part of a battle that would change the course of history. Still the Enemy Within tells the story of a group of miners and supporters who were on the frontline of the strike for an entire year. These were people that Margaret Thatcher labelled ‘The Enemy Within’. Many of them have never spoken on camera before.
Using interviews and a wealth of rare and never before seen archive, Still the Enemy Within draws together personal experiences – whether tragic, funny or terrifying – to take the audience on an emotionally powerful journey through the dramatic events of that year. It is ultimately a universal tale of ordinary people standing up for what they believe in. It challenges us to look again at our past so that in the words of one miner, “we can still seek to do something about the future”.
Directed by Owen Gower, produced by Sinead Kirwan and Mark Lacey, executive produced by Christopher Hird and crowd-funded, the film has the support of Ken Loach, John Pilger and Lee Hall (writer of Billy Elliott). Still The Enemy Within will be released in UK cinemas from 3rd October before a London Premiere at the Prince Charles Cinema, Leicester Square and just after the much anticipated Pride starring Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton, which features the dramatized story of Mike Jackson one of the film’s contributors.
Director Owen Gower said, “We are immensely honoured to have worked with some of the finest people I have ever met, and to have been allowed to tell their story. I just hope that more people will have the chance to be inspired by their courage through our movie, just as I have.”
Producer Sinead Kirwan said, “The response to the film so far has been incredibly and we cannot wait to share the story of these, funny courageous and extraordinary people with the wider public.”