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Sundance Doc 'Everybody to Kenmure Street' Recounts Glasgow’s 2021 Deportation Standoff

Felipe Bustos Sierra reconstructs a leaderless protest using crowdsourced footage, reenactments, anonymized testimony.

Overview

  • The film premiered in Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Competition, where reviewers described it as especially timely.
  • Director Felipe Bustos Sierra draws on phone videos from an estimated 2,500 people mobilized via WhatsApp chains, Facebook livestreams, and local networks.
  • A protester positioned himself under the immigration van for more than eight hours as neighbors organized support on the street.
  • A local human-rights lawyer entered the scene during the standoff and negotiated the unconditional release of the two detained men.
  • To protect identities, the production anonymizes key participants, with Emma Thompson voicing the words of the protester known as “Van Man,” and situates the day within Glasgow’s anti-deportation activism, including the Glasgow Girls.