Parky At the Pictures (6/11/2026)

(Reviews of Merry Christmas Aubrey Flint; One in a Million; and We, the Hated)

MERRY CHRISTMAS AUBREY FLINT.

Why on earth is Jack Spring's Merry Christmas Aubrey Flint being released in UK cinemas the day after Bonfire Night? Spring made his feature bow at 19 with Destination: Dewsbury (2018), which he has since followed with Three Day Millionaire (2022). But this reworking of the Scrooge saga affords the 30 year-old the opportunity to work with his most stellar cast to date.

Three decades after losing his mother after she had bought him a Napoleon statue for Christmas, Aubrey Flint (John Bradley) would rather stay home and paint his model soldiers than join in the festivities. He grumbles about York being thronged with revellers to shopkeeper Janet (Adjoa Andoh) and ignores the advice of model shop owner Mr Hopkins (Richard E. Grant) to visit his estranged French father (). When Hopkins cracks his hip clearing snow that Aubrey has complained about, he is forced to stay in hospital for three weeks and coaxes his best customer into running The Miniature World of Wonders to cash-in on the Christmas trade. However, Aubrey has anthropophobia and he locks people out of the shop so he can paint models in peace.

Meanwhile, Mr Formby (Dave Johns) fails to persuade council leader Milton Crawley (Alex Macqueen) from agreeing to sell off the Willow Lodge retirement home to Gravitas property developer, Hugo Fox (Dustin Demri-Burns). Crawley announces that the sale will be confirmed in 30 days and that the residents will be rehoused in the new year. However, home warden Ellen (Sophia Di Martino) hits upon a plan to stage a play so that the Arts Guild will object to the closure of a theatre space.

After 10 days of keeping the door locked, Aubrey is shamed by Janet into going to Christmasland to buy Mr Hopkins a snow globe to cheer him up. However, he gets apprehended by elves and given a community service order after he punctures the wheel of a disabled shopper during a fight over a globe. He is sent to Willow Lodge, but a row with gardener Colin Barrow (Karl Pilkington) over planting azaleas in the wrong soil prompts Gloria to intervene (while having a crafty smoke in the bushes) and persuade Ellen to let Aubrey and (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) help out with the production instead.

Auditions don't go well, but the residents are enthused by the project and Ellen tries to persuade Aubrey to get involved. He insists, however, that he only reads history, even though he's intrigued by the opening lines of A Christmas Carol (read by Jim Broadbent as Charles Dickens), a copy of which has been left open in the kitchen. Moreover, he is taken aback when Harry (Gary Lilburn) reads part of Jacob Marley's regretful lament and when Gloria strides through a tea break to deliver Scrooge's `boil in their own pudding' speech with a simmering polish that leaves everyone aghast.

Kugan thinks Gloria should be given the lead, but Ellen goes with the stuttering Sadie because it would give her confidence. Aubrey agrees and, even though she had been an actress earlier in life, Gloria agrees to narrate as Dickens. Moreover, she offers to help Sadie prepare (with a cornball speech about people passing by the home). Chirpy Cockney Ned (Nigel Planer) is cast as the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Back at the shop, Hopkins tells Aubrey that Dickens was a great social historian and this convinces him to read Ellen's copy of the text. Several passages hit home and he gets a new admiration for Ellen when she stands up to Fox when he comes to show a contractor around the home. Kugan has also got a crush on Ellen, who reveals that she was a teacher before she took over from her father, Formby, when he fell ill and became a resident himself. In return, Kugan admits that he was arrested for assaulting a police officer when he was mistakenly apprehended by three plainclothes men.

Getting into the spirit of the enterprise, Aubrey brings Mr Hopkins to the home to work with retired craftsman Clarence (Brian Bovell) on the set. His efforts at directing are less successful, however, and Gladys offers some advice that helps him loosen up. Kugan also gives him some tips on being friendly to strangers and he even goes to the pub for the first time, when Ellen learns that the Arts Guild intends sending bigwig Wendy Mallett (Harriet Webb) to assess the play. This means they will need to put on a great show in front of a full house or they are doomed. However, Fox has heard about the play and threatens Crawley that he will expose his corruption unless he gets his hands on Willow Lodge.

Having finished the story, Aubrey feels like a new man and strides through the Shambles donating to the chuggers and even buying a red Santa hat. But he arrives at the home to discover that Mr Hopkins has died and he is one of the few at the funeral. Janet tries to rouse him from his lethargy, but it takes Crawley's sidekick (Tom Bell) cancelling the show for breaches of the fire regulations that brings him round. He sells his prized Napoleon and uses the money to hire Kugan's builder pal to do an emergency job on a backstage fire exit.

On Christmas Eve, a small crowd gathers expectantly and Ellen greets Wendy, who happens to be in Yorkshire so she can slaughter her own turkey in Tadcaster. Sadie gets stage fright before her entrance, but Gloria extemporises, while deftly calming her down and the show goes on. Ned gets tipsy from his Dutch courage and Gloria is again forced to ad lib before Aubrey emerges on stage to rousing applause and the play is hailed a triumph. So much so that Wendy gives the home accreditation and Ellen gets the courage to turf Hugo out on his ear.

She also persuades Aubrey to share a hug after giving him a copy of A Tale of Two Cities. But he prefers to follow his usual Christmas Day routine of feeding the ducks and visiting his mother's grave. He has a change of heart, however, and takes his father, Albert (Adrian Rawlins), to the home for lunch and introduces him to his friends before toasting through the Fourth Wall.

Even a certain Oscar-winning Sicilian director would blush at some of the Capracorny conceits that Chris Boyle-McQuarry crams into this Yuletide yarn. Yet only the hardest hearted would humbug this charmingly old-fashioned piece of storytelling, no matter how much sentiment the screenwriter ladels over it. Similarly, Jack Spring makes no apologies for keeping things simply on the directing front, as he keeps the camera relatively still and lets his excellent ensemble do its stuff.

Not everyone is going to buy Richard E. Grant in a Harpo Marx wig and a Mark Twain tash, as the model shop owner who feels like a cross between Geppetto and Mr Gruber from the Paddington franchise - especially as his Yorkshire accent seems to disappear after he comes out of hospital. Sophia Di Martino also has to contend with a distracting hairpiece. But she is winningly warm as the resourceful Ellen and keeps the plot on an even keel through some of its more abrupt shifts, although even she can't pull off the clumsy romantic subplot.

Celia Imrie is typically accomplished as Gloria, while Nigel Planer hams it up splendidly as the rather under-used Ned. As for John Bradley, he goes for a blend of Nathan Lane and Ricky Gervais in creating the eponymous festivephobe. The script rather fudges why Aubrey and Albert have drifted apart and requires a few too many convolutions to deposit him in Willow Lodge. But, while Boyle-McQuarry might avoid over-egging the Scrooge borrowings, Jeremy James Hunt's score lays on the schmaltz with a trowel. The ditties used to counterpoint the action don't really work, either, if only because they come in various styles that don't always suit the mood of the scenario.

Grumbles aside, this is an enjoyable heartwarmer that would have been perfect for a 6 December release rather than November. Still, it gives critics and award givers plenty of time to add casting director Lucy Amos to their end-of-year lists.

ONE IN A MILLION.

Documentarists Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes were working on the BBC series, Exodus: Our Journey to Europe (2017), when they met Israa, an 11 year-old Syrian girl who was selling cigarettes with her father in the Turkish coastal town of Izmir. Over the next seven years, they would follow Israa and her family in a project that has been compared to Michael Apted's Up (1964-2026) and Richard Linklater's Boyhood (2014). However, this deeply moving documentary also has much in common with Hassan Fazili's Midnight Traveler (2019), which followed an Afghan refugee family on its three-year struggle to find sanctuary after reaching the Balkans.

Opening with shots of Israa returning to a bombed-out Aleppo in 2026, the film cuts back to Izmir's Basmane Square in 2015, as Azzam and MacInnes meet the 11 year-old for the first time. She shows them the stall where you can buy phone chargers and waterproof bags for your phone before her 48 year-old father, Tarek, invites the film-makers home to meet the family that has travelled together from Syria. Younger sister Jana has special needs and requires a wheelchair, while mother Nisreen has to carry toddler son, Ammar. Israa jokes that she knows how to rescue herself if anything goes wrong on the dinghy taking them to Greece.

Tarek had a falafal shop in Aleppo and wonders if he's done the right thing in moving his family after a shell had landed on their balcony. Israa is scared when an argument gets heated and she runs to fetch Azzam and MacInnes in the hope they can sort things out. But everyone pulls together when a smuggler tells them that their dinghy will leave at 7pm that night. We see people crammed into the boat with life jackets on, as phone footage takes over to convey the mood during the three-and-a-half hour journey across the Aegean to Samos.

Azzam and MacInnes meet them there, as Israa feels a sense of exhilaration, even though her clothes are soaking wet and she will have to sleep in the street. A ferry takes the migrants to the mainland and the family takes to the road to walk to the border with Macedonia. Israa tells the film-makers that she has heard that they will be given a big house in Germany with baskets of food. She coos that `Europe is paradise.'

We don't see how they pass through into Serbia, but they are held up in the rain at Sid because Croatia won't let anyone enter. Such is the cold that two children die in the makeshift tents and, during an interview with Tarek, Israa can't stop crying because she remembers what she saw and the feeling of how miserable and afraid everyone felt, as they were left to fend for themselves.

Trudging along roads and through fields, the family reaches Austria, where they are put on a train. Israa is excited to see some bicycles outside a house and is given pause for thought when she comments on seeing a train full of foreigners and is reminded by Azzam that she is the foreigner here. However, they are on their way to the promised land and they are given asylum in Germany and Tarek gives thanks for the welcome. He also says he will never let his children forget that they are proud Arabs from Syria.

Ten months pass and Azzam and MacInnes catch up with the family in Cologne. Israa is doing well at school and rides there on her bike. Tafek joins an anti-fascist march and notes how such a protest would be met in Syria. He asks his daughter what she likes about Germany and she answers, `democracy', although she really means having the liberty to do what she likes, whether it's going clothes shopping, bopping to Justin Bieber, or refusing to wear the hijab - because shampoo smells of freedom.

On Nisreen's 34th birthday, she puts make-up on Israa and Tarek tells them to remove it because they have guests. He also doesn't want them having painted faces in the film, as it will reflect badly on him. Israa already has problems with her father, as she doesn't want to speak Arabic at home and she tells the film-makers during the party that her mother has suffered her whole life. When interviewed, she reveals she was never allowed to go to school before she was married off and had four children (another son, Shahad, is not discussed) and a house to run. She admits the journey was hard, but she loved being out of the house and jokes, as she wheels Jana and Ammar in a buggy, that she is enjoying being free.

After playing football in a Liverpool shirt, Israa chats on the phone to Mohammed, who commented on a photo she posted online. She dreads her father finding out (he checks her phone for messages from boys) and complains that he won't let her learn to swim or play football. Nisreen concurs that Tarek has become very suspicious and never leaves the house because he doesn't trust anyone. But Israa accuses him of hitting her and she cries as she reveals that she has thought about running away. She fears everything she had hoped to do will be denied her because her father is imposing his will on the family because he has become a nobody in Cologne.

Nine months pass and Nisreen has thrown Tarek out of the house. He is staying with a friend and denies ever hitting his children. Protesting that the word `daddy' means everything to him, he insists he was merely trying to remind his family of old traditions. But Israa says the police came and took him away and Nisreen tells her mother that she will find a job when she has finished her studies so she can provide for her kids. Israa wishes she had a father she could confide in, but she is glad he's gone.

Another 18 months pass and 16 year-old Israa spends most of her time with 25 year-old Mohammed. He has taught her the importance of religion and she now wears a hijab and considers it a liberating decision. However, teasing in class about being a bomber made her decide only to wear it outside school and her teacher is surprised by her decision. She is also worried about her dropping grades and Israa admits she needs to improve. Tarek is living in a refugee camp and wishes he had never come to Germany. But Nisreen is thriving and looks a changed women, in both her appearance and her self-confidence, as she describes living with Tarek as being hellish and she wishes she could tell everyone Syrian woman to set herself free.

She scoffs at the idea of remarrying, as she will settle for Israa's happiness at finding love. Having met Mohammed's parents, they decide to marry, even though Nisreen thinks 18 is too young. But she is supportive on Israa's wedding day because she knows she shares a deep bond with Mohammed after having been through similar migrant experiences.

In 2024, Bashar al-Assad is toppled and Tarek wonders whether Syria will be safe enough to return home. Now 20, Israa is now a mother and she makes the visit to Syria with mixed emotions. She is happy to meet Mohammed's grandparents in Hama, but feels uneasy about the more traditional lifestyle to which she would have to acclimatise. Once again, she feels like a foreigner and the sight of Aleppo makes her wonder what new sacrifices she would have to face if they did return. However, she feels nostalgic on recognising parts of her neighbourhood and is excited to find her old address after 10 years, only to be dismayed by the levels of destruction.

Torn between wanting to be in her homeland, but also happy in Germany (which has given her so much), Israa acknowledges that Tarek gave up his life in Aleppo to give her a better chance. Now with a greying goatee, he admits to beating Israa and that he felt inadequate in his new surroundings and took it out on her. He regrets it, but suspects she no longer needs him and knows that a broken glass cannot be mended. However, we get to see him playing in a play park with his grandson and he has hope that he can regain his daughter's trust. Nisreen is taking driving lessons and has no intention of going back to Syria. As the film ends, Israa is uncertain what to do for the best and, as we see clips of her over the previous decade, she can't say where or who she will be in another 10 years. What she does know, however, is that war is bad, but what comes afterwards is worse.

Having themselves left Syria in 2011, Azzam and MacInnes could readily empathise with the fleeing family and their off-camera presence at certain key moments in Israa's journey shows how much she came to trust them during the decade-long shoot. At one point, she runs to them in the hope they can stop her parents arguing, while she chooses to confide in them that her father hits her rather than her teachers. Yet it's Tarek who invites them into the family circle, when he says before they board the dinghy in Izmir: `If anything bad happens to us, you'll have to tell our story.'

They certainly take him at his word, continuing, with the family's approval, after having originally decided to stop filming when Israa turned 18. Their commitment is laudable and also discrete, as they leave sensible periods for Israa to develop in her own space without the distraction of the camera. One is reminded of the way in which Phil Grabsky has continued to follow the fortunes of Mir Hussain in The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan (2004), The Boy Mir: 10 Years in Afghanistan (2011), My Childhood, My Country: 20 Years in Afghanistan (2021), and 20 Years in Afghanistan (2026).

Compelling though Israa's evolution is, it's her mother who undergoes the most remarkable transformation. Initially, Nisreen almost makes caring for Jana and Ammar an excuse for staying in the background and letting Israa and Tarek take centre stage. By the end, however, as she is interviewed wearing make-up and a striking turquoise hijab, it's clear that she has been emancipated and the smile with which she responds to Azzam's question about marrying again is perhaps the highlight of the film. It's also poignant to watch Tarek playing with his grandson, as he seems entitled to a degree of redemption, despite his chauvinistic bullying. After all, he made the decision to give his family a chance of a better life and there is something pitiful about his emasculated inability to seize that opportunity for himself, especially as it has subsequently emerged that he was also beaten by his father and had been arrested five times by the Assad regime.

While the personal aspects of the story give the film a certain universality, there is a very specific bent to the political element. The shots of the migrants huddled in the dinghy and the phone footage captured during the crossing are harrowing, while the coverage of Tarek's attendance of the anti-fascist demonstration and the Syrian liberation celebrations reinforce the documentary's insights into the patriarchal nature of Arab/Islamic society. Similarly, Israa's history with the hijab is revealing, as is her quandary about staying in Germany or moving back to the homeland she barely knows.

Azzam and MacInnes expertly weave these threads through a decade's worth of footage, although credit should also go to editors Iain Pettifer-Moth and Alec Rossiter. That said, it is noticeable that the married film-makers (who ran up £40,000 of debt before the BBC's Storyville and others agreed to fund the film to completion) sometimes hasten through significant episodes and often withdraw before a situation has played itself out. They might also have been advised to tone down the more plaintive parts of Simon Russell's emotionally manipulative score. But they should be commended for seeking to show post-Brexit British audiences that there is another side to the migrant equation that tends not to be reported as widely as the boats and the bigotry.

As a member of the persecuted Druze minority, Azzam has admitted to mixed feelings about Syria's progress over the last two years. Her parents, for example, have fled the country. The prospect of Israa returning gives the documentary something of a cliffhanger ending. It will be interesting to see whether she contacts Azzam and MacInnes about a follow-up and how they will respond.

WE, THE HATED.

Activist-turned-documentarist Rich Felgate is prepared to do what it takes to make his films. He spent 18 months living in protest camps for Finite: The Climate of Change (2022) and was arrested on Coronation Day in May 2023 on suspicion of `conspiracy to cause a public nuisance' while shooting We, the Hated. No charges were pressed, but girlfriend Inigo Rumbelow was jailed for 18 months for her part in an act of non-violent resistance at Manchester Airport. She is a co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Felgate uses his feature to explore both the group's raison d'être and why it is so despised by certain sections of the public, the press, and the establishment.

In an opening phone exchange between Felgate and Rumbelow in HMP Styal, she acknowledges that Just Stop Oil picked a fight with the government, the police, the courts, and the media. But she also asks, `how bad to things have to get before you step up and do something?' The montage of news clips that follows certainly seems to suggest that climate change is having a drastic impact on the global environment. But it also reveals how divisive Just Stop Oil's tactics are and raises the question of how effective they can be when they provoke fury rather than elicit support.

Just Stop Oil was formed in 2022 after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that his Conservative government was going to issue a new batch of licences for drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea. Inspired by Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, Rumbelow sought to raise awareness by peaceful protest and her cause was taken up by the likes of Mark Coleman, a vicar living with Parkinson's Disease who was one of 56 arrested for failure to comply with a court order by blocking the entrance to the Kingsbury oil terminal in Warwickshire.

When recovering anorexic Phoebe Plummer joins a sit down protest in Piccadilly, they are abused by a passing pedestrian while wearing a neck lock to prevent them from being easily arrested. They also had water poured over their head by a foul-mouthed, middle-aged, white van driver in orange hi-vis, who clearly reckons the `children' need a wash. Others caught in traffic jams question how blocking roads and stopping people going about their lawful business is going to change anything and this is the tack taken on television by the likes of Vanessa Feltz and Piers Morgan, as right-leaning newspapers seek to dismiss Just Stop Oil as `eco clowns'.

A montage of natural disaster footage plays over climate scientists warning of the dangers of ignoring the signs the planet is giving us. Sixtysomething Jane Touil is registered blind, but feels dutybound to pick up a loudhailer and protest outside the Houses of Parliament. We see an angry motorist (who claims to sympathise with the cause) dragging protesters off the road so he can pick up his daughter. He asks other passersby (those who are not filming the incident on their phones) to hold people down so the cars can get past.

As Coleman is arrested again for sitting in the road, Rumbelow faces a fierce backlash after arguing with Mark Austin on Sky because insists on discussing Just Stop Oil's tactics rather than its motives. He defends media coverage of climate emergencies and patronises her when she tries to emphasise a point. Frustrated that she's being branded as a globe-trotting farmer's daughter because she once visited Nepal, Rumbelow snaps at Felgate for making his `stupid film'.

The Sky fallout translates into increased aggression against the protesters in London, with motorists pushing them aside and one man even kicking the person he has shoved over. The media focusses solely on the rights of the public to go about their business without disruption, as Touil is arrested after having glued her hand to the road. She reveals that her husband disapproves of her actions, especially as she has quit her job to devote more time to activism. But she doesn't feel she can walk away.

Coleman notes that no one within the Church of England is speaking out on the issues and he finds this silence to be disturbing. During a TV debate after several high-profile sporting events are halted by Just Stop Oil, Jon Sopel wearily dismisses the tactics, only to be shot down by Emily Maitliss, who points out that women's rights would never have advanced had the Suffragettes merely agreed to sit around a table for polite talks.

In October 2022, Plummer and Anna Holland were arrested for throwing cans of Heinz tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh's `Sunflowers' in the National Gallery and gluing their hands to the wall. The pink-haired Plummer found themselves in the eye of a media storm, as they were interviewed on television by the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Victoria Derbyshire. They found the ordeal of becoming a meme stressful, but was prepared to endure it in order to follow up Just Stop Oil's biggest media spike. As they say, it shouldn't be up to a 21 year-old social anthropology student to alert the government to the dangers when climate scientists and organisations like the United Nations are saying the same things - and also being ignored.

Touil and Plummer are part of a number of activists who closed motorways across the country by climbing on to gantries in November 2022. In the wake of the protest, the term `eco-terrorism' became common in the media, with even Ed Balls using it on ITV's Good Morning. Influenced by an oil-funded think tank, Rishi Sunak introduced the Public Order Bill to clamp down on the protests (which demonstrated that the government can act swiftly when it suited them). Speakers came forward to defend the right to protest, pointing out that we wouldn't have weekends, let alone the vote, if our ancestors hadn't acted and disrupted daily life. But there was also a wave of support, with former Metropolitan Police detective-turned-GB News pundit Peter Bleksley looking forward to the `stupid, infantile cretins' being jailed.

Captions explain that the new law extends to all public protests and can lead to 10-year sentences for `conspiracy to cause a public nuisance'. Rumbelow was arrested in a dawn raid by five police officers threatening to break the door down. After seizing computers, leaflets, and posters, they ask her to accompany them to the station, with Felgate filming and thanking them for `keeping us all safe'. She's released under investigation, along with over a thousand Just Stop Oil activists. Plummer shows her tag, while Coleman rifles through court documents. He intends pleading `not guilty' because seeking to prevent `greater harm' was a `reasonable excuse' for blocking a road. As there has been a history of juries finding for protesters, Home Secretary Suella Braverman won a landmark case to allow judges to prevent protesters from explaining the full context of their actions. Coleman was denied the chance to defend himself as he had planned by Judge Silas Reid and was found guilty and sentenced to five weeks in HMP Thameside.

Touil reveals that her blind husband stopped speaking to her for three weeks after her gantry arrest. She laments that number of the willing have declined because of the crackdown. But TV chat shows, radio phone-ins, and podcasts start admitting that Just Stop Oil had a point (regardless of their tactics) and Rumbelow hopes that they have made a difference after all. Drilling licences became an issue during the General Election in July 2024, although captions point out that Labour didn't revoke any of the licences awarded by Sunak's Tories for the likes of Jackdaw. Keir Starmer also says that growth is the No. priority of his government, not any climate commitments. A caption highlights that the largest new oilfield in the North Sea would produce more CO₂ in a year than the world's 28 poorest nations.

With scientists exposing the damage being done by refusing to stay under the Paris climate agreement limit of 1.5% of warming, Rumbelow vows to keep up the fight by targeting airports. Before the campaign begins, however, Just Stop Oil activists are jailed for the motorway protest by Judge Christopher Hehir and a caption declares them `the most severe for public protest in Britain'. The UN claimed it was a dark day for human rights in the country, as four-year and one five-year sentences were handed down.

Following a touching farewell in which Felgate admits that he worries that all the sacrifice might well have been in vain, Rumbelow heads to Manchester Airport. Following a tip-off, the planned action is thwarted and Felgate includes police footage of Rumbelow's arrest. We also see Plummer being arrested for defacing information screens at Heathrow Airport after they had confided in Felgate that they believe they had been hacked in order to ascertain infomation about future activities.

Felgate gets another call from Rumbelow in prison, as she has been denied bail and will have to spend six months behind bars before her trial. A caption reveals that she was sentenced to 30 months, while Judge Hehir gave Plummer and Holland two years for damaging the Van Gogh frame. The jury is divided over Touil (who was not allowed to mention fossil fuels in her defence), but she and Plummer are found guilty for the motorway protest on retrial and Touil gets two years.

A closing caption states that protesters were sentenced to c.136 years during filming, while many more await trial. Before ceasing activities, Just Stop Oil activists were imprisoned over 180 times, while there were 3300 arrests. The government is currently considering abolishing juries for protest trials - this is your country folks. Aren't you proud?

Ending on a lighter note, as Coleman is released carrying a copy of Inside Time, this is not just a chronicle of the Just Stop Oil protests. It's also a snapshot of post-Brexit Britain and the attitudes that have made the country more divided than at any time since the General Strike - and how much did you hear about its centenary back in May? Along with editors Rachel Roberts and Shane McCormack, Felgate had produced a cogent and potent record that tries to place as much emphasis on the message as on the mayhem. He has chosen his subjects well, as they are courageous and erudite. But they are also everyday people, who have decided enough is enough.

And who could argue otherwise, given the summer heatwaves we have just experienced? Along with the wildfires that raged across Europe and elsewhere. With the floods and landslides. And with the continued melting of the polar ice caps, the pollution of our seas, the heating of deserts, and the depletion of the Ozone Layer. What else to we need to see - it's in front of our eyes and seemingly too few people care to take a stance.

While urging everyone to see this film - not to laud the Just Stop Oil activists or rehash the debate about their tactics - but to see how they were treated by their fellow citizens, by the police, the courts, and the media. And by a government that exploited the crisis to impose draconian measures that impinge upon the human rights of every single one of us.

In an usual step for this column, it feels right to end this review with part of a June 2025 Guardian article that Indigo Rumbelow wrote in prison, in which she discussed the pronouncements of Judge Jason MacAdam: `The judge stated that "the stance taken by you [by pleading not guilty] distinguishes you all from others who have chosen to follow the long and honourable tradition of civil disobedience on conscientious grounds, that is accepting that you have broken the law and accepting the punishment that follows". In doing this he not only disregarded the 1670 trial of Penn and Mead (where Quakers pleaded not guilty to unlawful assembly), the Ploughshare Four trial (where peace activists defended themselves by arguing that they acted to prevent harm), and the Rivonia trial of Nelson Mandela (who defended himself against conspiracy charges brought by the apartheid South African government). They all pleaded not guilty.

He also denies the very essence of the tradition of protest: its ability to evolve and adapt to different contexts in order to find the confrontational edge essential to nonviolent action. Just Stop Oil is not a re-enactment group, it is an action group, which has taken a strategic decision to continue resistance into the courtroom. By asserting the necessity for our actions, we include the legal system in the debate over our duty and responsibilities.

Later in the judgment, MacAdam appeared to reveal outright contempt for those in resistance, as he mused "how wrong it is in a free and democratic society to consider that your own belief in the worthiness of a cause to be justification for breaking the law". As if centuries of political and social struggle had never taken place, as if the current "free and democratic society" has delivered the protection and defence we need from ever-increasing heating and extreme weather events.'

Well said!