Experiencing Interruptions?

If Not Now

If Not Now is a documentary essay film addressed to my Jewish great-great grandmother, Rebecca, who lived and died in Brick Lane in London’s East End. Her death haunts my memories. Brick Lane has been home to successive immigrant communities, Huguenot weavers, Jews, Bengalis; today it is semi-gentrified with hipster clothes shops, street food, beigel bakeries, Indian restaurants and sari shops. In 1978, Bengali workers organised the first black strike in England and protested against racist attacks and murder by the fascist National Front. Left-wing parties were divided over strategies of resistance to the National Front. The film explores the assertion that in opposition to notions of waste, and dispersal, there is a grand circularity, of nothing ever, ever going away; that resistance to fascism in the past may be a catalyst for resistance today.

  • Jill Daniels
    Director
    Resisters; Breathing Still; Journey to the South; My Private Life II; My Private Life; Border Crossing; Not Reconciled
  • Jill Daniels
    Writer
  • Jill Daniels
    Producer
  • Stuart King
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    15 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    January 10, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    3,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Small Axe Radical Film Festival
    Powys
    United Kingdom
    August 6, 2023
    British Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Braziers International Film Festival
    Reading
    United Kingdom
    September 3, 2023
    Official Selection
  • Visible Evidence Documentary Conference
    Udine
    Italy
    September 9, 2023
  • International Initiative for Political Economy Conference
    Madrid
    Spain
    September 6, 2023
  • Flight Film Festival
    Genoa
    Italy
    October 19, 2023
    Official Selection
  • Senior Movie Film Festival
    Szczezin
    Poland
    September 23, 2023
    Official Selection
  • International Social Justice Film Festival
    Chennai
    India
    September 15, 2023
    India
    Official Selection
Director Biography - Jill Daniels

Born in Manchester Jill Daniels is an internationally renowned British filmmaker and writer. Her innovative documentary essay films explore memory, place, Jewish identity and autobiography. She has won many awards, including best experimental film award for My Private Life II a film about sexual identity in her family, at the Ann Arbor Experimental Film Festival in the USA. Resisters (2021) is the latest in her series of films exploring the rise of nationalism in Berlin. The first film in the series, Breathing Still (2018), won the best documentary award at the Small Axe Radical Short Film Festival in 2019. Her website is www.jilldanielsfilms.com

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