Vanessa Hope

In this vHopeful conversation, I speak with Chilean-Belgian filmmaker Felipe Bustos Sierra about his exhilarating Sundance-winning documentary, Everybody to Kenmure Street, which brings us inside the extraordinary eight-hour 2021 uprising in Glasgow’s Pollokshields neighborhood, when hundreds of neighbors gathered on the first day of Eid to stop a Home Office van from deporting two local men. Felipe reflects on why he initially did not go, how the legacy of his family’s Chilean exile and the Scottish solidarity at the heart of his first film, Nae Pasaran, shaped his response, and what he learned from listening to more than 150 people who took part. We discuss the film’s urgent blend of participant-shot footage, archival material, and inventive reenactment, including Emma Thompson as the anonymous “Van Man,” as well as the profound care, imagination, and collective courage that transformed one street into a living lesson in resistance. At a moment of intensifying anti-immigrant rhetoric and attacks on protest, Felipe’s film reminds us that ordinary people, acting together, can make solidarity real and can change what seems possible.

Opening in theaters in LA next Friday, Oct 2nd @laemmle_royal Listen to our full conversation wherever you get your podcasts. Find the post on Dream of a Better World and Hope for Film Substacks.