People's Kitchen from 6.30pm

Food available by donation

 

Film at 8pm

 

BLOW FOR BLOW (COUP POUR COUP)

(France 1972)

(86 mins)

FREE ENTRY

 

 

In a small textile factory, women produce clothing despite the heat, pace, and tiredness. Inadequate pay, tough management, lip-serving union officials and the dismissals of two workers finally serve to provoke a strike and a sit-in take-over of the plant.

 

A group of women workers confront the inhuman discipline of some foremen who have clearly taken the principles of scientific management to heart and walk around in lab coats while holding stop watches. After a series of minor sabotage efforts, two women are fired, prompting a spontaneous strike. The union immediately attempts to contain and take control of this autonomous action, but negotiations by a male union representative are ignored when the women call for occupation.

 

The film is a study of the general conditions of many working class women, and the suppression they endure both at work and at home. Because they fulfill both productive and reproductive functions, the women face specific gender issues during their three week occupation of the plant. The old woman who reminisces about her strike experience in 1936 seems to be as real as the young, harried mother who rails at her husband's inability to handle their youngsters.

 

Marin Karmitz made the film in a deserted factory in Normandy. The women contributed with their own experiences of real strikes to the final script and the factory was made ready to really work. The film was made as a collective effort: all the workers in the cast are genuine, but actors were called on to play the management. Actresses and film crew formed a film collective in which everyone received the same pay. The final credits show a collective work: the non-professional and professional actors are treated on an equal footing with the technicians, screenwriters and the director .

 

 

Blow by Blow earned Karmitz the undying hatred of bosses and unions, and he was blacklisted for many years.