Attendees joined Director Timothy George Kelly on the opening event for the 2017 ESRC Festival of Social Science: a special and free screening of Brexitannia, the first documentary on Brexit featuring Noam Chomsky, Saskia Sassen, Guy Standing, Nick Srnicek, Heidi Mirza and Federico Campagna.
On/off. Yes/no. Leave or Remain?
While referenda always divide people, Brexit did so in a manner unprecedented in modern British history: old pitted against young, nationalists against migrants, the countryside against the city, and 'the people' against 'the elite'.
But underneath these binaries we find human beings whose individual stories influenced the outcome of this historic and perplexing vote.
In the referendum the UK was torn apart by debates over the great themes of our age: migration, waning empires, work and its decreasing relevance in an outsourced world that is becoming ever more automated.
Brexitannia is a portrait of a democracy in all its impossible and ugly glory. With subtle force, yet without judgement, it presents the people of a once powerful empire as they negotiate their identities in a world that is changing faster than ever and in which power appears to lie further and further from people’s own hands.
Directed by Timothy George Kelly. Produced by Stereotactic and Beat.