Fight the Authority – In Your Pajamas: The film about the day Glasgow kicked out immigration officials | film

IIt was a clear spring morning in May 2021 when UK Immigration chose Eid al-Fitr day to swoop into a property in Glasgow’s most diverse area and detain two men living there. Eight hours later, the men were released and returned to their community after one of the most spontaneous and effective acts of civil resistance in recent memory – after hundreds of local residents surrounded the truck, preventing it from moving away.

Five years later, as attitudes towards immigration detention harden across the UK and violence towards protesters escalates in the US, the documentary Everybody to Kenmore Street, directed by Felipe Bustos Sierra, tells the story of that extraordinary day.

A nuanced dissection of protest and also a love letter to the community, the film has already won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance. It shows what can happen when a group of strangers decide that today is the day they will make a change—and how it changes them then. Much of the film is based on footage captured by participants that day, sourced from social media and individuals, then carefully assembled over the course of four and a half years to show the evolving scene from every possible vantage point. It is a criminal counter to misinformation often attributed to online sources.

As I reported on Kenmore Street that day as the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent, I can recall how the initial speed of mobilization was a testament to the branching activist networks that had taken root in Glasgow’s south side for more than a century. But not everyone who responded to the call was protest veterans. Through engaging interviews, Bustos Sierra introduces the neighbor who ran into the street in his pajamas, the community activist who responds to a text alert, the local imam, and the student on his way to biology class—all drawn by the allure of this single event.

A question mark remains as to whether the Ministry of Interior had considered provocation by launching such a raid on Eid. “But I liked that the initial anger was replaced by saying, ‘We are ready,’” says Bustos Sierra. “They have been spiritually prepared for this.” [during the fast of Ramadan]. “It was a day to come together and celebrate.” As one Muslim activist says: “They had time. We had water.”

Water and more. As the day went on, the nearby bus stop became a makeshift gas station, stocked with donated drinks and snacks, including holiday cake. “The thing that caught my attention early on was the safety net around solidarity,” says Bustos Sierra, who grew up in Belgium after his Chilean father fled Pinochet’s bloody 1973 coup. He says Kenmore Street represents a “practical shift” in how the protests sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement are conducted. “The goal was first to create a safe space, so that more people would feel able to attend.”

But the film, and the protest itself, is also grounded in Glasgow’s heritage, sparsely incorporating archival footage of rent strikes and the dockyard occupation. Indeed, award-winning director Nay Basaran’s debut film unveiled a similar story about the global impact of local bravery, interviewing Scottish Rolls-Royce workers who refused to repair jet engines for the Chilean Air Force in protest against the Pinochet regime.

“They were surrounded by people who had done this for decades,” Bustos Sierra says, referring to the young activists who attended — people like Rosa Salih, one of the Glasgow girls who fought to have her Kosovar school friend detained in the 1910s and forced an end to child detention in the UK.

Nor does he ignore Glasgow’s deep connections to the transatlantic slave trade. As Zandra Yeaman, curator of The Hunterian in Glasgow, admits: “We like to think of ourselves as anti-racist, radical, ready to stand up for people’s rights, but we are also a city built on the backs of enslaved African people.”

Naturally, the entire protest was enabled by one act of bravery on the part of an activist who slid under the officials’ car just after breakfast and wrapped his arm around the axle. Ignoring any accompanying hero worship, “Van Man” has chosen to remain anonymous ever since.

In the film, his memories are voiced by Emma Thompson, a fan of Nai Pasaran and the executive producer of this project. Bustos Sierra says he wanted to reflect “the sense of defiance and hurt that people brought,” and it was a moment of great magic when Thompson, seen on camera being squeezed under the body of the car, pulls down her face mask and, in the role of Van Man, tells the viewer: “This is not my face but these are my words.”

In 2021, the Kenmore Street protest was taken as further evidence of the fundamental necessity for Glasgow to welcome refugees. Five years on, anti-immigration sentiment is on the rise, and the UK’s Reform Party is expected to win a raft of seats in May’s Holyrood election.

“People need to hear a story like this now,” says Pinar Aksu, another activist interviewed by Bustos Sierra. “We don’t always have a victory at the end of our stories, but hope is all we have.”

Although he lived within walking distance of the protest, Bustos Sierra didn’t answer the call himself because, as he admits: “I didn’t think anything positive would come out of it.” He has come to understand the film as an act of atonement, and he laughs. “And we have to remember: If we don’t show up, nothing will happen. I missed that collective joy and expression of sympathy which, to me, is happiness. The point is, you just have to keep showing up.”