Everybody to Kenmure Street
The thrilling tale of a Glasgow community’s spontaneous act of civil resistance that saved two of their own from a Home Office deportation raid.
On 13 May 2021, as the first day of Eid-ul-Fitr dawned, a Home Office immigration raid targeted an ordinary residential street in Pollokshields, Glasgow, bundling two local men into a van. But their neighbours wouldn’t let it leave; one protester flung his body under the van and hugged the axle. Word travelled quickly: soon, more than 2000 ordinary people had dropped their morning cuppas, walked out of work meetings and abandoned their daily routines to converge on Kenmure Street. There was no plan – most of these civil resisters didn’t even know one another – but they showed up instinctively nonetheless to bear witness and defend what was morally right.
Haunted by his own decision to stay home that morning – “I didn’t see the hope everyone on Kenmure Street did” – Scotland-based Chilean-Belgian director Felipe Bustos Sierra commemorates this day of spontaneous solidarity as a moment-by-moment mosaic of crowdsourced testimonies, archival fragments and self-aware dramatisations by actors Emma Thompson (also an executive producer on the film alongside Hugh Bonneville) and Kate Dickie (The Witch, MIFF 2015). Winning a Special Jury Award for Civil Resistance at Sundance 2026, this heartening film is a timely reminder that we never need permission to stop legalised injustice.
“Adroitly told … an amazing story of a community triumph … a morale-boosting film.” – The Guardian
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