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.
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Jill DanielsDirectorResisters; Breathing Still; Journey to the South; My Private Life II; My Private Life; Border Crossing; Not Reconciled
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Jill DanielsWriter
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Jill DanielsProducer
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Stuart KingKey Cast
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Project Type:Documentary, Experimental, Short
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Runtime:15 minutes
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Completion Date:January 10, 2023
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Production Budget:3,000 USD
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Country of Origin:United Kingdom
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Country of Filming:United Kingdom
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Language:English
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Shooting Format:Digital
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Black & White
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
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Small Axe Radical Film FestivalPowys
United Kingdom
August 6, 2023
British Premiere
Official Selection -
Braziers International Film FestivalReading
United Kingdom
September 3, 2023
Official Selection -
Visible Evidence Documentary ConferenceUdine
Italy
September 9, 2023 -
International Initiative for Political Economy ConferenceMadrid
Spain
September 6, 2023 -
Flight Film FestivalGenoa
Italy
October 19, 2023
Official Selection -
Senior Movie Film FestivalSzczezin
Poland
September 23, 2023
Official Selection -
International Social Justice Film FestivalChennai
India
September 15, 2023
India
Official Selection
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