On Friday, November 18th at 7.30pm at Lansdown Hall in Stroud there will be a special premiere of the community film Days of Hope.
The film tells the story of a meeting of the Chartists on Selsley Common on 21st May 1839. The Chartist movement was committed to getting the vote for working class people meeting was attended by 10,000 people.
The film is written and directed by John Bassett and received a small amount of funding from Stroud Arts Festival. It has taken four years to get finished.
John said: “The film is part historical drama, part comedy and part music. I wanted to tell the story in a different way from straightforward history and it incorporates a wide range of styles. It is also intended to be as accessible as possible. Being a film involving many people from the community it has taken a while to finish because it has been a labour of love and not a paid work.”
Amongst the known Stroud performers are poet Jonny Fluffypunk, actors Kim Baker and Mark Abbott and radical historian Stuart Butler. Stuart was the person who kicked the project off and he said: “The Chartist movement is often forgotten in the history of democracy in this country but without their work then we would not all have the vote today.”
The film also features new songs by local bands Chinese Burn and The Forgetting Curve who will play live after the film has been shown.
Tickets for the event are £10.00 and are available from www.spanielworks.co.uk