AV Festival — A–Z of films

A thought-provoking 22 minutes.

Arguably the film is a slight affair in comparison to some other contemporaneous works, although perhaps some of the shortcomings seen by modern eyes are an unavoidable part of filmmaking in that era.

The film is one of the first examples of vox populi and the presentation of ordinary people talking directly to the camera was innovative for the era.

Paul Rotha's film is impressively rounded and researched in how it considers multiple perspectives and interrelating elements of infrastructure, economy and commerce.

A poetic evocation of Britain under pressure.

Purely observational though it is, this is a film that becomes devastating in its intensity.

The Berwick Street Collective did not set out to make a by-the-numbers film and instead crafted a documentary that is experimental in form, and that strives to get at deeper truths about gender and labour inequalities.

Refuge England is a film made by someone with empathy for the man onscreen and genuine insight into the experience of leaving your home through necessity rather than choice.

Loznitsa does not impose his opinions onto the material in an obvious fashion.

The film suggests that the story ignites a sense of working class solidarity.

Jennings had an eye for small moments that signal real life rather than something staged for the camera

The film takes a compassionate stance towards the unemployed.

To watch Utopias in 2016 is to experience a sense of déjà vu - it shows the NHS and whole concept of the welfare state under attack while the Labour Party flounders through factionalism and an inability to articulate a vision of the future.

There's a sense then that we're seeing more than the director intended.

The film lacks the lively spark and sense of nationwide collectivism of Jennings' subsequent film, Listen to Britain.