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Red Skirts on Clydeside (Edinburgh)
21 September 2025 | 3:00pm - 5:30pm
Film Synopsis: Red Skirts on Clydeside
A 1984 documentary made by the Sheffield Film Cooperative attempting to uncover the buried stories of women’s activism during the Glasgow Rent Strikes of 1915.
Going between the living room, the archive, and the streets, this film traces the radical currents that have always run through Glasgow and politicised the home. Interviews with descendants of the strikers retell the stories of socialist Sunday schools, the women’s movement, and how to stop the police from evicting your neighbours (or even dump a sheriff in the midden). Appalled to have found women’s activism filed under ‘miscellaneous’ at the Marx Memorial Library, the filmmakers decided to set the record straight – and despite a systemic lack of documentation, it’s clear our movements today have much to learn from these Glasgow women’s tactics, resilience, and creativity.
CONTENT NOTES: Discussion of sexism, classism, imprisonment, birth control and evictions.
ACCESS NOTES: Explanatory dialogue throughout, with some visual storytelling and some on-screen text. Mixed bright and dull images with high contrast. Mild buzzing sound from some archival audio; brief loud gunshots towards the end of film.
This screening and workshop is programmed by Living Rent as part of #TOAFF25.
Beyond the Screen
Living Rent will be running a post-screening workshop exploring the politics of home, and looking at how the domestic intersects with the political. Unlike workplace organising, community organising looks to your neighbours and your local area. In an increasingly splintered society, drawing on connections with neighbours can be a radical practice – these workshops will explore the practical steps of creating connections with your neighbours, organising as tenants and having open conversations around what community means.
Booking Information
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