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CLR James in Trafalgar SquareEvery Cook Can Govern

September 2017

 

The Manchester Salon was delighted to host the Lancashire premiere of Every Cook Can Govern – the first feature-length documentary to explore the life, writings and politics of the great Trinidad-born revolutionary C.L.R. James who died in Brixton in 1989.

 

This unique screening was at Texture, 67 Lever Street, Northern Quarter, Manchester M1 1FL with producers Fraser Myers and Marisa Pereira answering Questions afterwards.

 

This award winning film, much acclaimed as a historical tour-de-force, interweaves never before seen footage of C.L.R. James with unique testimony from those he knew, alongside interviews with the world’s most eminent scholars of James’ life, work and politics. From slavery to colonialism, cricket, Marxism, movies, reading and revolution, what emerges in this film is an understanding of what it meant to be an uncompromising revolutionary in the 20th Century.

 

Already screened at the Trinidad and Tobago film festival, the Pan African Film Festival in LA and nominated for Best documentary in the Learning On Screen Awards, it is apt that this next premiere is in Manchester, where CLR James was a cricket correspondent for the Guardian. The year he spent in nearby Nelson, which shook his world, is fully explored in the film too and the friends he made there funded his seminal work The Black Jacobins.

 

Every Cook Can Govern marks the culmination of a five year multimedia project arranged by the education charity WORLDwrite and its Citizen TV station WORLDbytes. Its unique production history – crowd-funded, crowd-featured and crowd-filmed – does credit to James’ conviction that every cook can govern.

 

For the trailer, reviews, more information about the film and about C.L.R. James, visit the C.L.R. James Knowledge Portal. The film is also available on DVD here.

 


Watch the trailer here

 


Venue and Time

Texture In Texture, 67 Lever Street, Manchester, M1 1FL. If you're familiar with the area, it's towards the far end of Lever Street away from Piccadilly Gardens.

Please arrive around 4:30pm for a prompt 5:00pm start - expected to finish before 9:00pm. Tickets are £5 (£3 concessions) payable in advance, and should be booked online via Eventbrite, by clicking on this link or by Emailing This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

 

This discussion, including audience comments, will hopefully be filmed and made available online as a reference resource.



Discussion Partners

WORLDbytesWORLDbytes is a unique online Citizen TV channel set up and run by the education charity WORLDwrite. Dedicated to advancing new knowledge, skills and ideas, the charity promotes excellence in citizen reporting and provides free training to volunteer-learners which combines practical film making with tackling challenging issues.

In one sense we’re all citizen journalists now and the mainstream media gathers sound bites from us to extend its reach and provide an interactive edge. We’re allowed to text vote on shows, our emails are read out on breakfast news, an occasional mobile phone clip gets aired but where is the access to the training or expensive kit to allow us to contribute serious reports, alternative stories, views and news? WORLDbytes, the charity’s pioneering channel, has stepped into the breach to ensure Citizen TV is both possible and taken seriously.

Citizen TV has a vital role to play in covering the ideas and stories rarely told, without the constraints of commissioners’ whims, mainstream “ratings” wars and fears of upsetting conventional wisdom. There is a different tale to be told and WORLDbytes’ motto is “Don’t shout at the telly, change the message on it”.

 

 
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