G8: Can You Hear Us? is a one hour film which follows three very different activists as they make their way to Gleneagles to protest about the 2005 G8 Summit. I have a particular interest in the film because it features the G8 Bike Ride which I was heavily involved with. I attended a preview at The Frontline Club on 2005-11-14, which was followed by a lively Q&A session with director and producer Christopher Mitchell. I watched it again with my family when it was screened on BBC4 the following day.
One of the activists featured in the film is Matt Wootton, a Green Party Executive Member who joined the G8 Bike Ride in Lancaster who was present at the preview and seemed generally pleased with the way the film turned out (Green Party press release). Another was Mark Fischer of the Communist Party of Great Britain.
The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army CIRCA were the real stars of the show though, with their highly visual and generally anarchic approach to protest. A couple of the clowns actually cycled up to Scotland with us rather than travelling on their chip oil powered bus. Although we were mainly focusing on environmental issues (which is partly why Matt joined us), the G8 Bike Ride was actually conceived at a meeting during the 2004 Anarchist Bookfair and we had a fair amount in common with CIRCA:-) Many of the bike riders were also veterans of Critical Mass, another anarchic phenomenon. The film also included footage of Rhythms of Resistance and The Infernal Noise Brigade.
The film is available for download at archive.org (where I have written a review).
www.zenatode.org.uk Ian Gregory 2010