Mike Figgis, Chris Marker & Mario Marret: workers speak for themselves

The battle of orgreave 
Mike Figgis, 2001, UK, 60min

Mike Figgis documents Jeremy Deller’s re-enactment of the battle of orgreave, the 1984 strike of the national union of mineworkers. The plant at orgreave was the site of one of the most violent altercations with the police and the miners, culminating in a “cavalry charge” through the village of orgreave. Taking place 17 years afterwards, the re-enactment saw 800 participants, many of whom had been present that day. It served to examine the battle of orgreave as legitimate counter-history, during a time in which thatcherian Britain underwent a violent economic change.

A bientôt j’espère (be seeing you)
Chris Marker & Mario Marret, 1968, France, 16 mm, black and white, 44 minutes

A document on the workers of the rhodiaceta textile plant in Besancon, France, and their strike in 1967, one year before May 1968. The strike itself was of particular interest because it did not disassociate the action against working conditions in the industry from the fight for social and cultural change.