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The Battle for Deptford

The Battle for Deptford is a feature length documentary about community, gentrification and resistance in South East London.

A beloved community garden and block of council homes are under threat from redevelopment. The council want to push through demolition, but local people fight back, to try to influence the plans and have a say in how their communities are changing.

Through protesting, occupying the garden and resisting a violent eviction, the campaigners battle for Deptford.

This film delves into how by changing our city we change ourselves, and the forces which can take this collective right away from us. It explores gentrification, air pollution, the importance of green spaces, and what it means to be part of a community.

  • Hat Vickers
    Director
    Winning at Work, Reclaim Holloway
  • Hat Vickers
    Producer
    Winning at Work, Reclaim Holloway
  • Hannan Majid
    Additional footage
    Mass e Baht, Udita, Tears in the Fabric, More Precious than Gold
  • Vytautas Rimkevičius
    Additional footage
    Got a Moment?: The Web Series, Kindred Spirits, Second Hand
  • Ivano Darra
    Additional footage
    The Uncovering of Joseph Boshier, LJWW1
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 4 minutes 52 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 28, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    5,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • NXDFFF
    London
    United Kingdom
    April 28, 2022
    UK premiere
  • Deptford X
    London
    United Kingdom
    September 16, 2022
Director Biography - Hat Vickers

I am a self-shooting filmmaker and founder of Hat Productions, with over ten years experience producing shorts for social change organisations such as The New Economics Foundation, Just Treatment, Global Justice Now and War on Want. I have also created journalistic content for outlets including BBC World Service, British Medical Journal, and Panorama.

Alongside this I have been heavily involved in campaigning for safe, secure and affordable housing, both across London through the Radical Housing Network, and locally where I live in South East London. This has included managing the deluge of press interest in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire, as well as successfully campaigning to have the old Holloway prison site designated for social housing and community services for women.

These worlds came together in 2018, when I began filming a campaign to save a community garden and council homes next door to where I lived, a campaign that escalated to occupation of the garden and subsequent eviction by bailiffs and police.

Supported by Rainbow Collective Documentary Productions (Udita, 2015; Tears in the Fabric, 2014; Mass E Bhat, 2015; More Precious than Gold, 2019) I produced and directed The Battle for Deptford, bringing together my storytelling and campaigning experience, as well as my personal, trusting relationships with those involved.

This is a powerful and colourful documentary, which intimately captures the raucous, radical, art-filled and personally transformative campaign, and also tells bigger truths about gentrification and the cities we live in today.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I didn’t set out to create a feature-length film when I picked up my camera to capture what was happening at Tidemill. But that’s where the story and people around this local community garden close to my heart took me.

What on the surface appeared to be a scruffy, chaotically-managed, half-wild scrap of green hidden amongst the tarmac and concrete of South East London, I knew to be a fiercely-loved, well-organised space which had allowed a joyful jumble of people, cultures and communities to flourish. And the run-down block of council flats next door housed a close-knit, long-standing family of residents.

But our council, hell-bent on getting rid of the garden and block to make way for new flats, were doing everything they could to rubbish their value, and to smear the locals and residents who came together to campaign for them to be saved.

What began as a compulsion to show what wasn’t being told became an intention to create a documentary as events took ever more combative turns. Treated with disdain by their elected officials and the developers, my friends and neighbours transformed into radical campaigners, determined to protect the communities they had created and ensure existing and new social housing for their neighbourhood.

Reducing my hours producing short films for social justice organisations, I crowd-funded a small budget and set about documenting the fight and a handful of engrossing characters leading it.

Five years later, I have created a film which captures this colourful and explosive nub of London’s history, and also speaks to issues common to gentrifying cities across the world: the vitality and transformative effects of gardens and parkland, how people do and don’t have a say in how their neighbourhoods are changing, and what it means to be part of a community.

This documentary sheds light on how by changing our city and neighbourhood we change ourselves, and the forces which take this collective right away from us, told through a colourful story with riveting characters.

Making The Battle for Deptford has been deeply therapeutic for all of us involved in the campaign. Through it we’ve been able to reaffirm our shared story of this garden and these homes, and to continue the creativity and collectivism that was nurtured in them. Premiering the film locally was a powerful experience, enabling people to come together to reflect and process their shared loss and anger.