A film made in collaboration with women affected by incarceration that examines the intersections of race, gender and class within the UK criminal justice system.
Everything Worthwhile is Done with Other People centres the conversations, experiences and freedom dreams of a group of women affected by the carceral state, as encountered through the UK government’s hostile environment policy[1] and prison system. This project began as a series of workshops led through Hibiscus Initiatives[2], framed around questions of criminality, innocence and citizenship as perceived through the lenses of gender, race and class.
Everything Worthwhile Collective comprises women from South Africa, Ghana, Jamaica, Albania, Nigeria, and Iraq who gathered through these workshops (2018 – 2023). Across sessions, the technical facets of filmmaking were deconstructed, through theatre games and improvisation, camera and sound exercises, storytelling and testimony. Central to this process was sharing of lived experiences: offering mutual support, practical advice and strategies for navigating the prolonged uncertainty of asylum applications, housing needs, urgent medical care, and rebuilding some semblance of stability after the traumatic impact of detention or a prison sentence.
The resulting polyvocal, hybrid film offers a small glimpse into a group’s attempt to connect and form against punitive forces designed to diminish, reduce and disappear. It asserts that despite these conditions, solidarity and love can and does prevail.
The programme will be introduced by Rehana Zaman and Lizzie Graham and will also feature a screening of Time and Time again: Women in Prison by Nina Ward with Women & The Law Collective, 1986, as well as a conversation with members of the EWIDWOP collective.
Introduced in 2012 by Theresa May, the hostile environment policy, specifically the UK’s immigration policy, refers to measures taken by the state to make life difficult for people without legal status by restricting access to housing, jobs, banking, healthcare, and benefits, essentially forcing them to be deported.
Hibiscus is a feminist, anti-racist and intersectional women’s organisation that has delivered high-impact advocacy and advice services to Black and minoritised migrant women in contact with the Criminal Justice and Immigration systems for nearly 40 years. We have distinct expertise in working with migrant women in prison, in the community, and immigration removal centres.
Artist Bio
Rehana Zaman is an artist living and working in London, formerly from Heckmondwike, and before that from Pakistan. Her work speaks to notions of kinship and sociality, seeking out possibilities of intimacy and transgression within hostile contexts. Conversation and cooperative methods sit at the heart of her films, which extend into texts, performances and group work. She has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. Recent presentations include Serpentine Projects (forthcoming), BEK – Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts, British Art Show 9 (Touring), ICA Miami, Trinity Square Video, Toronto, Borås International Sculpture Biennial (Sweden) Artist Film International Whitechapel, London and worldwide. In 2019 she co-edited Tongues with Taylor Le Melle, published by PSS and was shortlisted for the Film London Jarman Award. She is a member of not/nowhere artist workers cooperative and her films are distributed by LUX.
Director/Camera/ Editing Rehana Zaman and Everything worthwhile
Collective Producer Amal Khalaf and Elizabeth Graham
Production Coordinator Layla Gatens
Second Camera Chinekwu Okoronkwo
Sound Recordists Gisou Golshani, James Bull
Colour Jason R. Moffat
Sound Design mix Richy Carey at èist sound
VFX Tim Booth
Film telecine James Holcombe
Commissioned by Serpentine Civic
Serpentine Cinema curated and produced by Kostas Stasinopoulos, Elizabeth Graham and Isobel Peyton-Jones
