#SaveOurSteel
We’ve been helping young filmmakers Joe Cornick and Maddy Chisholm-Scott with their work on a film they’re making about the people of Port Talbot and their umbilical relationship with the steelworks, The Blood of Us Suddenly, with the announcement of the loss of nearly 3,000 jobs and the rapid closure of the blast furnaces, the town and workforce have been thrown into turmoil and and give Joe and Maddy added impetus to finish the film. That’s why we’ve helped in creating a crowdfunder to help get the film over the line and on tour around the country as part of wider fund raising effort to #SaveOurSteel
Joe has had some support from Panavision with equipment and Kodak with film. When they first approached us we were really attracted to this unique commitment to filming on 16 mm. It would have have been easy for Joe to blag a fancy 4k digital camera from Panavision but he was determined to use celluloid. He feels there’s something timeless about the medium and that long after we’re struggling to retrieve data from out of date systems, there will be a reel available somewhere for future generations to see the way that the community around this mighty industry lived, worked and played.
Christmas week, Joe and bak were in the Community Union offices in Port Talbot discussing the project and how the film could help raise awareness of the workers fight to keep the plant open in some form. A few days later came the terrible news that everyone had been dreading.
Nils Pratley of The Guardian lays out the full horror in his article, “(Tata) the Indian-owned company’s decision to close its two blast furnaces at Port Talbot in south Wales contains a genuinely new feature. For the first time since the creation of the industry, the UK will be left without capacity to make steel from scratch.”
At a time of increased geo-political insecurity, does the UK government intend to shut down a key strategic industry, getting rid of our capacity to produce steel from scratch? If you want out check out the project and if you know anyone who might want to donate, here’s a link, The Blood of Us