Inspired by the 50th anniversary of the events of May ‘68 we present two rarely screened depictions of working class life and history.

Scottish director Bill Douglas only made a small body of work but his cinematic influence and impact is immense. Join us on a trip to Curzon Cinema and Arts in Clevedon to see Comrades (Sun 29 July at 10:00), his only feature film, which dramatises the story of the Tolpuddle martyrs whose Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers established in the early 19th Century in Dorset, which had them exiled to Australia, and is recognised as the seeds of the British Trade Union movement. Douglas weaves his love of early image making technology through the story being told via a lanternist who would travel the villages with his projector.

As well as being a key figure in the New German Cinema of the 1970s RW Fassbinder was one of the most prolific European filmmakers. Before his untimely death at the age of 37 he had directed over 40 films for cinema and some 15 plays - all provocatively pushed at the boundaries of aesthetic or subject matter.

He presaged the current trends and worked in television on a number of occasions. The 1980 mini-series Berlin Alexanderplatz is his most well known but it was the 1972 five part Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day (Sat 28 July at 10:00), depicting the lives of a group of tool makers, which not only showed rarely seen working class life on TV but also made the then rising talent a household name in West Germany.

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