Everybody to Kenmure Street is an urgent and uplifting documentary about the power of community in the face of state authority. What begins as a local incident on a single street unfolds into a universal story of civil resistance.
‍
In May 2021, on Kenmure Street in the Pollokshields district of Glasgow, local residents spontaneously blocked an immigration enforcement operation when police attempted to detain and deport two Sikh men from the neighbourhood. Over the course of several hours, hundreds — eventually thousands — of people gathered, forming a peaceful human barricade that prevented the removal from taking place.
‍
Filmed with a kinetic, ground-level immediacy, the documentary draws on mobile phone footage, first-hand testimonies, interviews and archival material to reconstruct the day’s events. The result is both dynamic and deeply human, capturing the emotional intensity of real-time collective action. While the film situates the protest within broader contexts — including Glasgow’s history of activism and the framework of UK immigration policy — its emotional core remains the solidarity of ordinary residents acting together.
‍
At once inspiring and politically resonant, Everybody to Kenmure Street demonstrates how a diverse urban community can mobilise spontaneously in defence of human dignity, and how collective action can shift not only a single outcome, but the moral conversation of a nation.

‍

Felipe Bustos Sierra is a Chilean-Belgian documentary filmmaker, producer and editor based in Scotland. His work is deeply rooted in collective narratives and questions of social justice, often exploring how ordinary people shape history through acts of solidarity.
‍
His 2018 debut feature, Nae Pasaran, told the remarkable true story of Scottish Rolls-Royce factory workers who, in 1974, refused to repair jet engines destined for the Chilean Air Force in protest against Pinochet’s dictatorship. The film established Bustos Sierra as a distinctive voice in politically engaged documentary cinema.
‍
Everybody to Kenmure Street is his second feature-length documentary. Through eyewitness testimony, community-shot footage and carefully constructed narrative framing, Bustos Sierra positions the camera not as a distant observer but as an active participant in the event — foregrounding the emotional charge, moral urgency and communal energy of collective resistance.

‍

Director: Felipe Bustos Sierra
Cast: a Kenmure Street közösség tagjai, Emma Thompson, Kate Dickie
Producer: Ciara Barry, Felipe Bustos Sierra
Executive Producer: Emma Thompson, Mark Thomas
Cinematography: Kirstin McMahon
Editor: Colin Monie
Music: Barry Burns (Mogwai)
Sound: Jack Coghill
Distributor: magyarhangya
Colour: colour and black&white
Run time: 99 mins

‍