90 Days of Hope screening on 01 December
Following on from our recent Secret Museum production, MoH is delighted to team up with creative associate Paul Atherton for a special premiere of his new film 90 Days of Hope on 01 December. The collaboration continue our season of exploring how the pandemic affected the homeless community.
What is it?
Rough sleeper & Filmmaker Paul Atherton is to premiere his & collaborator Owain Astles’ documentary film, 90 Days Of Hope: Why Britain Chose NOT To End Homelessness, at the Genesis Cinema in London at 18:45 on Wednesday 1st December 2021 as a charity fundraiser for the Museum of Homelessness.
Shot as a video diary over Britain’s Covid Lockdown between April and July 2020, 90 Days of Hope, explores Atherton’s firsthand experience of being taken from Rough Sleeping at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 on the 1st April 2021 to hotel apartment accommodation in Central London, for what was supposed to be the duration of Covid Lockdown.
Everyone In, was the nickname given to Boris Johnson’s initiative to protect those experiencing homelessness and unable to isolate by offering them hotel room accommodation with the declaration of “Everyone should be In by the weekend” on Friday 27th March 2021.
Background
In the beginning of the pandemic, the government brought thousands of people into hotels and other emergency accommodation to protect them from COVID-19. The scheme became known as Everyone In, and throughout 2021 MoH and it’s creative associates have been exploring it’s legacy.
Atherton explains “The Government were constantly telling the public what a success the scheme had been, but the reality couldn’t have been further from the truth. This is my first hand account of what happened, as it happened. The hopes and then the abject disappointment as it unfolded. It was great that Owain reached out in that first week with the idea, so we were able to record two contributions to camera each week for the entire period.”
Astles says “The original idea was to have many voices in the film and we were recording with other people in the same boat, but we realised in the edit, that Paul had a unique take on all this, being disabled with MECFS, having worked in politics and a filmmaker himself, it just seemed logical for him to tell the tale in its entirety.”
How can I come along and what will it be like
The event is at the Genesis Cinema in Stepney Green London, tickets are £7.50 and you can find out more here.
The premiere includes the 30 minutes screening of the film, and a selection of some of the verbatim theatre performances that Museum of Homelessness shared at it’s recent major production Secret Museum. One of the objects includes Atherton’s Harvey Nichols Tea Tin. Check out the trailer for the event here.
The event will also include a Q&A and an afterparty with live music from Paul Wiffen, who worked with Vangellis on the soundtrack to Blade Runner and British Artist Julia Sterland will be painting Alla Prima oil portraits for guests at just £60 on the night for an hour sitting with profits going to the charity.
We are honoured that Paul has offered to donate all proceedings from the event to MoH’s ongoing work.
About Paul and Owain
Paul Atherton (FRSA) was made homeless by a credit file error preventing him from renewing his tenancy in 2009. He has remained homeless ever since but during this time his film work has been collected into the BFI Film Archive & Museum of London, selected for the BUFF Film Festival & screened at the Leicester Square Odeon.
He is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts and was selected for the London Library Emerging Writers Programme 2021/22. His play Fifty Years Of Trying trialled at the Camden People’s Theatre in March 2020 & his Photographic Exhibition Paul Atherton’s Greatest Londoners took place at Gallery@Oxo on the Southbank in London a month earlier.
Owain Aistles is an award winning filmmaker specialising in issues driven and campaigning work. He is part of both BAFTA Crew & BFI Network and his work has been aired on BBC Arts and various film festivals around the country.
Further information about this event
This event is part of Reframe the Narrative, a season of events and activities funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund. The subject of the season is to explore how the pandemic impacted on people affected by homelessness, oppression and other forms of marginalisation.