Generation 3.0

Manchester

Clench – What are you fighting for?

A new film from Generation 3.0
Written and directed by Riffat Ahmed, produced by Davey Inc

Clench has been nominated in the Best Drama category at this year’s Limelight Film Awards, to be held on 14 June 2012.

Clench – What are you fighting for? from Runnymede Trust on Vimeo.

The fight to end racism begins….

Made as part of the Generation 3.0 project, which looks at how racism can be ended in a generation, this short film tells the story of Ash, a mixed-race girl from Old Trafford, Manchester.

On a youth referral scheme, we see Ash travel to the iconic Salford Lads Club where she takes up boxing as a way of dealing with her troubled past. By portraying Ash’s experience of the sport, the film highlights how the boxing ring can be a neutral space where race and neighbourhood politics are left outside.

The film looks at not only Ash’s own experience of racism, but also the preconceptions she holds about other people and places.

Clench demonsrates how boxing can become the ultimate visual tool for communication between generations, highlighting that every person has a story to tell regardless of how they look.

Why Manchester?

In our short film Clench we focused particularly on Old Trafford and Salford in greater Manchester due to their contrasts. Despite being so near to each other Old Trafford is a very multicultural area, whilst Salford is a lot less diverse. We wanted to show the journey of a young mixed-race girl travelling between the two areas, and to explore whether she is treated differently depending on which area she is in.

We decided to take Generation 3.0 to Manchester due to its size, diversity and status as the second largest city in the UK. Our film will be launched in a pop-up shop in Manchester Piccadilly station. By locating the shop in a busy transport hub, we hoped that this would help us reach a diverse range of people from across the whole of Greater Manchester.

A former Vodafone shop in Manchester Piccadilly station was the exciting new location to launch the Manchester phase of Generation 3.0 on 7 October. The empty shop was transformed into an inter-active discussion hub, where local people shared their views on racism and race equality.