Songbirds

A "documentary musical" about the women of Downview Prison in Surrey, England, and the latest in a series of innovative social films from director Brian Hill which use conventional transcripts and interviews merely as a basis for poetic (and later sung) texts. Here the production team pushes the form even further into musical territory than previous attempts, with most of the film set to music and sung by the women on whose shattered lives they are based - victims of drug addiction, abusive relationships and the criminal lifestyle. Pouring raw pain and emotion into Caribbean, hip-hop and urban songs that arise directly from their own experience, these women transcend the squalor of the topics and surroundings to achieve a quiet dignity.

Before screening will be shown a short film Pack Up Your Troubles.