The Song of the Shirt
- 1979
- United Kingdom
- 135 minutes
- English
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Courtesy of the BFI National Archive -
Courtesy of the BFI National Archive
A surprising film on women’s work in 19th-century London. This feminist narrative about the origins of the Welfare State takes the form of a many-layered documentary, based on multiple screens, the projection of texts and images and a distanced style of acting. Alternating information, epochs and places reveals the specific contradictions of the labour market and produces a reinvention of women’s past.
- Production : Sue Clayton; British Film Institute; Film and History Project, Royal College of Art, Polytechnic of Central London, Cinema Action, Greate; Arts Council of Great Britain
- Editing : Fran McLean
- Sound : John Anderton; Alan Abel
- Photography : Jonathan Collinson; Anne Cottringer; Ieuan Morris; Andy Murrow
- Music : Lindsay Cooper
- Cast : Martha Gibson; Geraldine Pilgrim; Anna McNiff; Liz Myers; Jill Greenhalgh; Sally Cranfield; Paul Bentall; Fraser Cains; Gale Burns; Martin Thom; Edward Clayton; Tony Maples
- Screenplay : Sue Clayton; Jonathan Curling
- Copy Contact : British Film Institute
