The Occupiers

When the British government responds to the threat of financial ruin by making the poor pay for the mistakes of the rich, a group of protestors takes up residence outside St Paul’s Cathedral in October 2011 to demand economic justice. This is their story.

  • Chloë Ruthven
    Director
    Jungle Sisters, The Do Gooders
  • Chloë Ruthven
    Producer
    Jungle Sisters, The Do Gooders
  • Virginia Cromie
    Executive Producer
    The Square, Rafea: Solar Mama, Inside Out
  • Bruce Coker
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 19 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    June 22, 2016
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    HDV
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Open City Documentary Festival
    London
    United Kingdom
    June 22, 2016
    UK Premiere
Director Biography - Chloë Ruthven

Chloë Ruthven is an artist and filmmaker whose previous productions include Jungle Sisters — an exploration of bonded labour in the Indian textile industry — and The Do-Gooders, a road movie in which she travels deep into the dark heart of the International Aid industry in the occupied West Bank.Ruthven graduated from St Martin’s School of Art in 1991, and practiced and exhibited as a painter for several years before moving into video art, and then finally documentary film. Motivated by social issues, she focuses on personal subjects through which she explores wider stories concerning social politics and injustice.

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Director Statement

I have been concerned with social justice and inequality for some time, and so joined the gathering outside St Paul’s Cathedral as a protester. It was only when it looked like this protest was here to stay, and I had joined daily to support, that I brought down my camera to record what was clearly an astonishingly brave and radical movement by this dedicated group of people. Unlike the very limited and one-sided media representation of this event, from the inside I could see just how multi-layered, complex and brilliant the protest was. As well as addressing financial and social problems, we were, in our attempts to live and practice what we preached, coming up with an alternative way of doing things. In a way, it was a 21st Century equivalent of Gandhi’s ashram model.