Film Number

12286

Title

MANCUNIA

Producer

Steve Hawley

Date

2020

Gauge

.mov

Colour

b/w & colour

Sound

sound

Running Time

31 mins 41 secs

Description

Mancunia is a haunting 30 minute film based around Michael Symmons Roberts’s acclaimed published poetry cycle about the myths of Manchester, with images by artist Steve Hawley, drawn from a century of film of the city from the North West Film Archive.
The poems read by Esh Alladi and Julie Hesmondhalgh counterpoint moving images of the city, from the Whit Marches down the Deansgate of the Edwardian era, to a 1970s student riot on Oxford Street. Together the words and pictures weave a picture of Manchester from the utopian exuberance of the opening of the Ship Canal through the depression of the 60s clearances, to the resurgence of the present.