Increasingly despondent, we seem to be losing faith in politics and our ability to make a tangible difference. In the UK, we face new restrictions on our rights to protest, and the far right is creeping into the everyday corners of our lives. So there really isn’t a better time for Felipe Bustos Sierra’s Everybody to Kenmure Street release. The documentary is a mosaic of first hand accounts, shaky phone videos and a few professionally acted recreations. The documentary takes place within one day — 13 May 2021 — when an attempted dawn raid by the Westminister Immigration Enforcement of two Pollokshields residents prompted a moment of spontaneous civil resistance in Glasgow.
Drawing from Glasgow’s history of civil resistance, and pride taken in unifying for a cause, the documentary captures how hope swells in community, how the breathlessness of knowing that what you are doing is important gathers and really enlivens resistance. It is a reminder of what is possible when we unify. We know that social media and phone apps can alienate us from each other, but this documentary reminds us how tech can help us organise.
The screening finished with a Q&A, where each panel member was asked what their “next thing” was. Kenmure Street resident and organiser Tabassum Niamat encouraged us to boycott, to use our money to “hit them where it hurts.” She stressed the importance of cooking for your neighbours, of eating together. Human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar encouraged Edinburgh residents to go to Glasgow and protest for the Sheku Bayoh inquiry about the circumstances of his death in police custody more than 10 years ago.
One Battle After Another has just won an Oscar for the 2026 best picture; a movie about revolution which looks like bombed offices, holding sergeants at gun point and sneaking into underground tunnel networks to hide from ICE. Everybody to Kenmure Street reminds us that revolution is also about sitting on the street in solidarity with strangers in your pyjamas, or handing out tampons at a bus stop.
Image by Malaika Waddell for The Student