We Are Many 12A

Fri 29 May - Sun 7 June

Director: Amir Amirani

Cast: Damon Albarn, Tony Benn, Hans Blix, Richard Branson, Danny Glover110 mins, 2014, UK

Amir Amirani’s revealing documentary charts the events and discourse that led to the day back in 2003, when over 30 million people in over 800 cities across the world marched in protest against the impending Iraq War, in what became the biggest global demonstration in history.

The image of the Twin Towers cut against a bright blue sky, plumes of smoke billowing from the sides is one that is impressed upon the world collective consciousness. To this day, the reverberations of the terror attacks of 9/11 can still be felt. But when the Bush administration – with Tony Blair’s backing – began usurping the tragedy, creating tenuous connections between Iraq, Al Qaeda and WMDs to justify a planned invasion of Iraq to start its war on terror, activists on both sides of the Atlantic quickly responded by challenging the legitimacy of the war. And what began as separate and dispersed anti-war efforts began to cohere, resulting in the largest mobilisation of people in history when on 15th February 2003, millions of people took to the streets across the world to say no to war.

Including gripping interviews with academics, politicians and activists including Noam Chomsky, Tony Benn, Jesse Jackson, Tariq Ali, and Hans Blix, this is an inspiring story about the power of modern communications to rally huge numbers of people around an old fashioned common cause, and one which provided a template for many of the epoch-defining popular protests of the last decade.

Trailer: