An account of the anti-poll tax demonstration on 31st March 1990. Raising questions about public order policing, the independence and accountability of the media and the right to demonstrate.
An account of the anti-poll tax demonstration on 31st March 1990, one that is radically different from that presented by TV news. Eyewitnesses tell their stories against a backdrop of video footage showing the days events as they unfolded. Demonstrators’ testimonies raise some uncomfortable questions: Questions about public order policing, the independence and accountability of the media and the right to demonstrate.
Winner of Prix du Public International Festival du Film Documentaire Nyon
“You remember the outrage and condemnation voiced by the media and politicians after the Trafalgar Square Poll Tax riot in March (1990). You remember the vicious, unprovoked attacks on police shown on the evening news that Saturday. But you won’t remember the speeding vans bouncing demonstrators off bonnets or the repeated baton charges that came without warning, since these were ignored by news transmissions. This film carefully reconstructs a step-by step analysis of the demonstration, combining unseen footage with a multitude of eyewitness accounts. It unashamedly gives no voice to the police, levels a two tiered accusation at them; at best they were badly organised; at worst they were downright confrontational”
Mark Wareham Independent Saturday 15 September 1990
“…a frankly tendentious alternative account of the riot that followed the London poll tax demonstration on March 31. It suggests that the version of events presented by the media which sparked such uniform expressions of disgust from the Home Secretary and his Labour shadow was concocted by the police. The case is underlined by the selected witnesses who say they were astonished by the television news programmes over that weekend. The police declined an invitation to answer questions arising. The film may generate all the controversy that the producers could want. Its major weakness is that it accepts the destructive rampage, by a minority of the demonstrators, as a natural consequence”
Sean Day-Lewis Sunday Telegraph 18 September 1990
“Two perceptions of the same event: the difference, says this film, is that the first was the picture painted by the media; the second is how it seemed to people on the ground who have, until now, lacked the platform to tell it from their side of the barricades. This they do here charting the events of that day through amateur footage and eyewitness stories, and suggesting that the violence was indeed orchestrated- but not by the marchers”
Sandy Smithies Watching Brief The Guardian Tuesday 18 Sept 1990
Also available to purchase on DVD from http://www.spectacle.co.uk/catalogue_production.php?id=55
Please contact Spectacle directly if you are interested in screening this film publicly: distribution@spectacle.co.uk
Download price is for institutional license.
