‘36 to ‘77
In 2019, ‘36 to ‘77, and the original companion film Nightcleaners (Part 1), were digitally restored from the 16mm originals. The newly restored films and companion books were published in a two disc/two book box set by Raven Row. This can be purchased at:
Amazon ($40 + shipping) - DVD edition
Lux (£24.00 + shipping) - Blu-ray edition
König (€24.80 + shipping) - DVD edition
Book 1 includes commissioned essays by Kodwo Eshun, Dan Kidner, Sheila Rowbotham, Sukhdev Sandhu, and Humphry Trevelyan, plus a new interview with Mary Kelly, excerpts of interviews with Marc Karlin and from James Scott's Nightcleaners production diary (1972).
Book 2 contains facsimiles, including an issue of Shrew (1971), the publication of the Women’s Liberation Workshop (this issue designed by Mary Kelly and dedicated to the cleaners’ struggle); excerpts from Red Rag (1973) and Spare Rib (1975); newsletters of the Cleaners Actions Group (1971); and a 1977 transcript of Nightcleaners.
Edited by Dan Kidner and Alex Sainsbury
Designed by John Morgan studio
For institutions interested in renting the restored 2K version for presentation at an institution, please contact LUX.
‘36 to ‘77
UK | 1975 | B&W & Colour | 90 mins
Credits:
Berwick Street Film Collective
Marc Karlin, Jon Sanders, James Scott, Humphry Trevelyan
Description:
In 1977 Marc Karlin, James Scott and Humphry Trevelyan started work with Jon Sanders on a sequel to Nightcleaners that was to focus on the impact of the nightcleaners campaign on one of the women who had been part of a successful strike in 1972. Myrtle Wardally was by then out of work at home, looking after her children and babysitting for friends. Represented in a series of re-filmed time lapse portraits and audio recordings, she reflects on her childhood in Grenada, the comradeship of the cleaners in struggle, the burdens of childbirth and childcare, and her isolation in a disinterested world. ‘36 to ‘77 inverts conventional documentary narratives, integrating the struggle for memory with the struggle for representation itself; not only for Wardally, but for the filmmakers and viewers, whose expectations of film narrative are challenged and transformed during the slow progression of ‘ improvisations with the materiality of sounds, images, colours, illumination, darkness, interruptions, voices and noises’ (Kodwo Eshun 2018)