Carry Greenham Home

Last updated
Carry Greenham Home
Directed byBeeban Kidron, Amanda Richardson
Distributed byConcord Media
Release date
  • 1983 (1983)
Running time
69 minutes
CountryEngland
LanguageEnglish

Carry Greenham Home is a 1983 documentary about the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp created by Amanda Richardson and Beeban Kidron. [1] [2] It bears the same name as the song by Peggy Seeger. [3] [4] It is considered "the first full-length documentary of a protest camp as a site of ongoing protest and daily living or re-creation." [5]

Contents

Summary

The film depicts various activities involving the people of the camp, including nonviolent direct actions, interactions with the media, conflict with law enforcement, and life around the camp.

Despite the intense subject matter, the film does not depict much spirituality. [8] The film has also been noted for its portrayal of visual symbolism, including "handmade sweaters adorned with feminist and pacifist emblems." [9]

Music

The film features protest music, including the titular song, "Reclaim the Night," [6] "We are singing for our lives," [10] "We are women" to the melody of Frère Jacques, and a version of "Which Side Are You On?," [1] evoking Barbara Kopple's Harlan County, USA . [7] The film has been interpreted as documenting how music can build collective identity, [11] and the folk style has been interpreted as reflecting the timelessness of their messages. [6] The phrase "Carry Greenham Home" took on a meaning of solidarity away from the site of the camp, [11] and its use in this manner was a source of confusion for a character in Ali Smith's Winter . [12]

Production

Kidron and Richardson began recording video for a university course as film students in December 1982 and stayed at the camp to record for seven months, but only assembled the footage in summer 1983, prompted by negative media coverage of the camp. [5] [13] Kidron said that "Then it seemed necessary." [5] Kidron also stated that they were surrounded by all male film crews at the "Embrace the Base" demonstration in 1982, and that the police accepted the male crews while the protestors welcomed Beeban and Kidron, drawing them into participating in the protest themselves. [13] It was produced on 16 mm film. [14]

Distribution

Carry Greenham Home's distribution was unconventional; it was distributed independently, with much involvement from the filmmakers. [7] It was played "in meeting halls, church basements and school classrooms, often with a Greenham protestor or two on hand for discussion." [5]

Awards

The film won a Gold Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival [15] [16] and was a finalist for Best Documentary at the Grierson British Documentary Awards. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RAF Greenham Common</span> Former Royal Air Force flying base in Berkshire, England

Royal Air Force Greenham Common or more simply RAF Greenham Common is a former Royal Air Force station in the civil parishes of Greenham and Thatcham in the English county of Berkshire. The airfield was southeast of Newbury, about 55 miles (89 km) west of London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peace camp</span> Form of physical protest camp

Peace camps are a form of physical protest camp that is focused on anti-war and anti-nuclear activity. They are set up outside military bases by members of the peace movement who oppose either the existence of the military bases themselves, the armaments held there, or the politics of those who control the bases. They began in the 1920s and became prominent in 1982 due to the worldwide publicity generated by the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp. They were particularly a phenomenon of the United Kingdom in the 1980s where they were associated with sentiment against American imperialism but Peace Camps have existed at other times and places since the 1920s.

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Faslane Peace Camp is a permanent peace camp sited alongside Faslane Naval base in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It has been occupied continuously, in a few different locations, since 12 June 1982. In 1984, the book Faslane:Diary of a Peace Camp was published, co-written by the members of the peacecamp at the time. There is also a secondary site on Raeberry Street in North Glasgow.

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Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp was a series of protest camps established to protest against nuclear weapons being placed at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire, England. The camp began on 5 September 1981 after a Welsh group, Women for Life on Earth, arrived at Greenham to protest against the decision of the British government to allow cruise missiles to be stored there. After realising that the march alone was not going to get them the attention that they needed to have the missiles removed, women began to stay at Greenham to continue their protest. The first blockade of the base occurred in March 1982 with 250 women protesting, during which 34 arrests occurred.

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References

  1. 1 2 "The legend of Greenham Common women's peace camp". openDemocracy. Retrieved 2021-03-30.
  2. ↑ "Carry Greenham Home". Time Out Worldwide. Retrieved 2021-03-30.
  3. ↑ "Guardian your greenham songbook | Your Greenham | guardian.co.uk". www.theguardian.com. Retrieved 2021-03-30.
  4. ↑ Romalis, Shelly (1987). "Carrying Greenham Home: The London Women's Peace Support Network". Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice. 12: 90–98.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Feigenbaum, Anna; Frenzel, Fabian; McCurdy, Patrick (2013). Protest camps. Zed Books. ISBN   978-1-350-22205-2. OCLC   1241539589.
  6. 1 2 3 "Sophie Brown on CARRY GREENHAM HOME". Club des Femmes. Retrieved 2021-04-29.
  7. 1 2 3 Mayer, Sophie (2017-07-03). "THAT'S WHY WE CAME HERE: feminist cinema(s) at greenham common". Angelaki. 22 (3): 67–76. doi:10.1080/0969725X.2017.1387367. ISSN   0969-725X. S2CID   148646316.
  8. ↑ Welch, Christina (January 2010). "The Spirituality of, and at, Greenham Common Peace Camp". Feminist Theology. 18 (2): 230–248. doi:10.1177/0966735009348668. ISSN   0966-7350. S2CID   144691820.
  9. ↑ "Carry Greenham Home". Frye Art Museum. Retrieved 2021-04-29.
  10. ↑ Beeban, Kidron (1983), Carry Greenham home, Concord Media, OCLC   910991098 , retrieved 2021-03-30
  11. 1 2 Feigenbaum, Anna (December 2010). ""Now I'm a Happy Dyke!": Creating Collective Identity and Queer Community in Greenham Women's Songs: "Now I'm a Happy Dyke!"". Journal of Popular Music Studies. 22 (4): 367–388. doi:10.1111/j.1533-1598.2010.01251.x.
  12. ↑ Smith, Ali (2018). Winter. Penguin Books. p. 207. ISBN   978-0-241-97333-2. OCLC   1088385657.
  13. 1 2 Frenzel, Fabian; McCurdy, Patrick; Feigenbaum, Anna (2016). Rovisco, Maria; Ong, Jonathan Corpus (eds.). Taking the square: mediated dissent and occupations of public space. Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 55–74. ISBN   978-1-78348-395-2. OCLC   919014721.
  14. ↑ Powerful images : a women's guide to audiovisual resources. Koen Book Distributors. 1986. p. 73. ISBN   88-85840-00-0. OCLC   14404465.
  15. 1 2 "Awards | Atticus Productions" . Retrieved 2021-04-29.
  16. ↑ L., Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey. Jacobs, Katrien. Unterburger, Amy (1998). Women filmmakers & their films. St. James Press. OCLC   654351894.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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