EVERYBODY TO KENMURE STREET
(The 2026 Sundance Film Festival kicks off Thursday, January 22 and ran through Sunday, February 1 for, sadly the last time, in and around Park City, Utah. Check out Chris Reed’s Shame and Money movie review, fresh from the fest. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)
As noted in my review for another Sundance 2026 film, To Hold a Mountain, protests can lead to change. Show enough resolve and gather one’s community around for support, and anything is possible. Let the powers that be know that they are seen and held responsible for their actions. In Everybody to Kenmure Street, director Felipe Bustos Sierra (Nae Pasaran) takes us back five years to a citizen uprising in Glasgow, Scotland, that demonstrated the effectives of peaceful dissent.
On May 12, 2021, two immigrant men in the Pollokshields neighborhood of Glasgow were pulled out of their flats by agents of the United Kingdom’s “Home Offiice” (their interior ministry, charged with public safety and border security). It did not take long for word to spread and for people to gather and surround the police van. What helped give locals time to congregate was the action of one man—who became known as “van man”—who lay down beneath the vehicle to prevent it driving off.
As we learn in the film, Pollokshields prides itself on its diversity and kinship. Adding insult to injury, the two seized individuals were Muslim and this was Eid (the end of Ramadan). The assembling crowd consisted of a representative mix of the populace, from all walks of life, social classes, ethnic groups, and religions, angry that the government would behave this way after apparently promising no more dawn raids. Plus, the men were going through proper channels to make their residency be by the book.
Bustos Sierra begins the movie with a montage of archival footage that shows the long history in Scotland of public defiance in the face of repressive policies. In 2005, a group of young women—who became know as the “Glasgow Girls”—successfully raised public awareness about the mistreatment of asylum seekers. One of them, now older, is part of the Pollokshields revolt.
One of the unique filmmaking twists here is how Bustos Sierra handles the reenactments mixed into the video captured on the day. To protect the identity of “van man” and the nurse who helped him remain safe, the director enlists the aid of actors Emma Thompson (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande)—also a producer on the picture—and Kate Dickie (Honey Bunch), with Keira Lucchesi portraying an additional protester. Thompson, especially, has such a familiar face and voice that at first her presence can overwhelm the scenes she’s in, but soon she just becomes one of the many winning techniques Bustos Sierra employs.
Our era is a time of backsliding democracies, unfortunately. Do not despair. Take heart that you are not alone. If everybody could rally on Kenmure Street, than so can they wherever you live. Rise up. Resistance is anything but futile.
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)
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