Free Party: A Folk History
Chart the life of the free party movement of the 1980s and 1990s in this screening of Free Party: A Folk History and post-film discussion with key figures.
They wanted the freedom to party, but the state saw them as the enemy within. Free Party: A Folk History tells the previously untold story of the free party movement, Castlemorton Common Festival and the Criminal Justice Act that followed, with panellists Lauren Martin (chair), Alan ‘Tash’ Lodge (photographer), Aaron Trinder (director) and Yushy (photographer).
Free Party is an independently made feature documentary charting the birth of the free party movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and how its impact sparked a revolution around the world, from raves and festivals to politics and protest.
The film follows the inception of the movement, a meeting between ravers and the new-age travellers during Margaret Thatcher’s last days in power, and the explosive years that followed, leading up the infamous Castlemorton Common Festival in 1992 – the largest ever illegal rave, which provoked the drastic change of the laws of trespass with the notorious introduction of the Criminal Justice Act in 1994.
Aaron Trinder, the film’s director, says the documentary covers ‘the last great unifying youth movement, before digital cameras and the internet, which really challenged the authorities, connected environmental awareness with music and questioned laws on land rights and trespass’. The themes of the movement as depicted in Free Party are relevant once again, as new laws on trespassing and protesting are being introduced to a new generation of young people.
Trinder is an award-winning writer, director and producer and founder of Trinder Films. He’s directed short films, been second unit on feature films and his current focus is on narratively rich feature documentary films.
Free Party’s key contributors include members of Spiral Tribe (arrested at Castlemorton) DiY, Bedlam and Circus Warp, as well as DJs and producers such as Chris Liberator, Youth from Killing Joke, Colin Dale, Charlie Hall from Drum Club and others.
Need to know
The screening is followed by a talk with some key figures from the film and the time.
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The film is Captioned.
The post-film talk is Speech-to-Text transcribed (STT).
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