We are delighted to announce that next Tuesday 31 March at 6:30pm there will be a free screening of the movie Carry Greenham Home at the Gulbenkian Cinema as part of the Fifty Years of Feminism Film Season.
The film will end with a discussion panel including Laura Hart and Anne Logan (SSPSSR), chaired by Elizabeth Cowie (School of Arts).
Filmed by Amanda Richardson and Beeban Kidron, now Baroness Kidron, over seven months at the Greenham Common women’s peace camp set up to oppose the siting of Cruise Missiles nearby – an occupation that lasted 19 years, – Carry Greenham Home shows the direct action taken to disrupt activities at the USAF base in Greenham. Giving a much fuller picture of what life was like than the fragmented and distorted news reports at the time, it shows the processes underlying the women’s decisions, the influence of outside forces, and the verve and style with which they developed their own brand of non-violent direct action, as well as their struggle to forge new values and ways of living in a non-hierarchical community. We see the difficulties of camp life, and the women’s feelings of anger, but also shows moments of great joy and laughter.
The protest, committed to disrupting the exercises of the USAF, was highly effective. Missile convoys leaving the base on military practice for nuclear war, were blockaded, tracked to their practice area and disrupted. Taking non-violent direct action meant that women were arrested, taken to court and sent to prison. The conduct and integrity of the protest mounted by the Women’s Peace Camp was instrumental in the decision to remove the Cruise Missiles from Greenham Common. Under the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the missiles were flown back to the USA along with the USAF personnel in 91/92. The Treaty signed by the USA and the USSR in 1987, state that the signatries are “Conscious that nuclear weapons would have devastating consequences for all mankind”, which was precisely the stated defence of the women arrested for their actions.
Kidron went on to make an adaptation of Jeanetter Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1989).
Carry Greenham Home, 1983, 69 mins. Amanda Richardson, Beeban Kidron http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/577179/