Iron Ladies

It has been described as a once in a generation piece of environmental legislation and is key to the government’s commitment to be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than that in which we found it. The Environment Act passed into law on 9 November 2021 – more than 1,000 days and three Parliaments since its first draft was published in 2018. Its journey was tumultuous, and its fate, at times uncertain. In this documentary, ENDS Report speaks to politicians and environmental policy experts to get the inside story on how this landmark piece of legislation was created – and finds out what the act’s architects think of it now.

Jean-Luc Godard brings his firebrand political cinema to the UK, exploring the revolutionary signals in late '60s British society. Constructed as a montage of various disconnected political acts (in line with Godard's then appropriation of Soviet director Dziga Vertov's agitprop techniques), it combines a diverse range of footage, from students discussing The Beatles to the production line at the MG factory in Oxfordshire, burnished with onscreen political sloganeering.

For 200 years, coal mining had been a way of life in Cape Breton. By 1920 things were looking up: miners were unionized and paid decent wages. Then the British Empire Steel Corporation arrived and bought every single steel and coal company in Nova Scotia. BESCO cut wages by a third, setting off a bitter labour dispute. The miners settled in for a long strike. Finally, in 1925, the military ended the unrest with brute force. But the miners, in one sense, had won. They broke up the monopoly and provided an example to workers across the country.

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.

"Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down" is a documentary film about British social policy. The focus is on the political struggle against neoliberal austerity policies, which have their origins in the hated Thatcher government. The film features the former socialist MP Dave Nellist, who is now the national chair of the Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition and Hannah Sell, the general secretary of the Socialist Party. The film features a local election campaign in the miners' town of Nuneaton, students campaigning against an increase in tuition fees and refuse workers from Birmingham striking against massive cuts to their wages.

The First Year tells the inside story of Jamie Driscoll’s first 12 months as the new North of Tyne Mayor.

Reserved by Citroën for immigrant workers, the Aulnay-sous-Bois factory experienced its first strike in 1982. Thirty years later, it's the turn of a new generation to join the fight. Worthy heirs of their parents, the workers revive a forgotten memory and offer a unique perspective on the history of contemporary France. Matteo Severi's film mirrors these two social struggles, led by workers from immigrant backgrounds.

In 1984, eleven miners entrenched themselves underground to protest for better working conditions in the mining village of Almaden in southern Spain. The strike, deep within the toxic mercury mine, lasted for eleven long days, during which the whole village showed its solidarity with the men protesting underground. The mine was the heart of Almaden, around which everything revolved – until it longer existed. The mercury mine was closed for good at the beginning of the 21st century. As a consequence, the area has experienced mass unemployment and slow decline.

In their own words, this is the story of six women from the South Wales valleys and how they helped sustain the bitter year-long miners' strike, changing their lives forever.

Henri Storck and Joris Ivens’ landmark of social documentary, blending staged scenes with locals and on-the-spot reportage to depict the 1932 miners’ strike in Belgium’s Borinage—evictions, hunger, and police repression—transforming outrage into a call for solidarity.

A new look at the public and private life of one of the most important statesmen in the history of Europe: Winston Churchill (1874-1965), soldier, politician, writer, painter, leader of his country in the darkest hours, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, a myth, a giant of the 20th century.

"How Every Film You Watch Tells You To Love The Rich and What To Do About It" explores the representations of wealth in cinema. It looks into how most beloved characters are subtly more well-off than they should be, how criticisms of the system are crushed, how the rich have become the average in the world of the cinema. And it shows how these stories distort the view of the real world, and are used against you by politicians.

A detailed investigation into the political and economic interests that, since the beginning of the 20th century, have pulled the strings of the arms trade, hidden in the shadows, feeding the shameful corruption of politicians and government officials and promoting a state of permanent war throughout the world, while they cynically asked for a lasting and universal peace.

This drama-documentary evokes what it was like to work closely with Churchill in the Cabinet War Rooms during the dark days of the Blitz and the later bombing raids on London. The programme combines superb archive film from the Imperial War Museum’s vast collection, with atmospheric dramatisations actually filmed inside the Cabinet War Rooms – the real locations from where Churchill led the nation. Includes first-hand accounts which reveal the challenges of working with Britain’s bullish war leader at close quarters.

OUT OF DARKNESS: THE MINE WORKERS' STORY is a documentary by Academy Award-winning director Barbara Kopple (HARLAN COUNTY, USA). Historical film footage and photographs are integrated with first-hand accounts of UMWA history and of the Pittston strike of 1989-90.