Thursday January 01 1970
Anarchist Film Screening
dublin |
anti-capitalism |
event notice 
Monday April 30, 2007 14:32
by w. - wsm
Ethel McDonald
Saturday 5th May 2007 - 4pm @ Seomra Spraoi
( www.myspace.com/seomraspraoi )
Showing:
Ethel Macdonald: An Anarchist's Story
http://www.spanishcivilwarfilm.com/
This drama-documentary tells the story of Ethel MacDonald. A forgotten legend, her story ranks alongside the courage of 'La Pasionaria' and the legendary 'Odette'. Whilst both these women sustained world-wide recognition, our Scots heroine dwindled into obscurity and remains forgotten to this day.
Ethel MacDonald's own intimate recollections are presented through a definitive mix of documentary and drama, re-visiting the Killing Fields that were the Spanish Civil War. Supporting commentary spoken by David Hayman paired with expert interviews, including Noam Chomsky, provides background knowledge of 1930's European Politics and a further insight into the young Scot's motives, actions and social situation.
The film links her own personal drama to specific archive footage of Barcelona in disarray - an image Ethel MacDonald came to know so well.
During ten months in 1936 and 1937 some 3 million men, women and children were involved in one of the most radical revolutions in world history.
In the countryside surrounding Barcelona peasants formed communes on land confiscated from old ruling elite. Workers took over the factories. Police were replaced with civilian self-defence forces.
In Catalonia three-quarters of the economy was under anarchists control. Hotels, shops, barber shops and restaurants were collectivised and managed by their workers, often making them more efficient. In some communes money was entirely eliminated and replaced with vouchers and bartering schemes.
It was this setting that saw Ethel MacDonald play her part in the greatest ideological struggle of modern times.
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Ethel MacDonald was born in Motherwell, a town just outside Glasgow on the 24 th . of February 1909. She was part of a large Bellshill family one of nine children. Leaving home at sixteen she became active in women’s movements and the rights of the working class. From an early age Ethel was an active socialist, still only sixteen she joined the Bellshill, Independent Labour Party, (ILP). She worked as waitress and shop assistant, in 1931 she came in contact with Guy Aldred who asked her to become his secretary. Ethel left the ILP and joined Guy Aldred in the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation, (APCF). Three years later in 1934 the APCF split over the issue of the nature of its opposition to Labour Parliamentarianism.
http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=3286
Still from the film
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