LFF Experimenta: The Poor Stockinger, the Luddite Cropper and the Deluded Followers of Joanna Southcott

Part of LFF Experimenta, this new work by Luke Fowler, a current nominee for the Turner Prize, explores the role played by left wing intellectuals in the working class communities of post-war Yorkshire. At night schools organised by the Workers’ Educational Association, adults with no other access to further education were taught by progressive thinkers such as Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart and EP Thompson, from whose treatise The Making of the English Working Class the film takes its long-winded title. As in previous studies of RD Laing and Cornelius Cardew, Fowler makes effective use of archival and contemporary materials. The result is far from a conventional documentary: in place of objective commentary, the soundtrack features the lilting voice of artist Ceryth Wyn Evans reading Thompson’s class reports (pointed and often droll). For the present-day images of municipal buildings, West Riding towns and surrounding landscapes, Fowler shot in collaboration with American independent filmmaker Peter Hutton.

The screening on 10 Oct will feature an extended introduction by Dr Tom Steele

LFF Experimenta brings together cutting-edge cinema, artists’ film and video and the avant-garde.