In May 2021, on a morning that coincided with Eid, UK Immigration Enforcement officers arrived in Kenmure Street in Glasgow’s southside to detain two men. Within hours, what began as a routine enforcement operation had turned into one of the most remarkable acts of grassroots resistance in recent British history. By the end of the day, after hundreds of local residents surrounded the van and refused to let it leave, the two men were released back into their community.
Five years later, as political rhetoric around migration hardens and protest movements face growing hostility, Everybody to Kenmure Street revisits that extraordinary day. Directed by Felipe Bustos Sierra, the documentary is both a meticulous reconstruction of a protest and a heartfelt tribute to collective action.
The film has already earned a special jury award at the Sundance Film Festival, and it is easy to see why. Bustos Sierra assembles footage captured by those present, drawn from social media and private recordings, and shapes it into a detailed, almost minute by minute account. The result feels forensic. In an age when online images are often dismissed as unreliable, the film demonstrates their power when carefully contextualised and patiently edited.
What stands out is the breadth of people involved. Bustos Sierra introduces us to the neighbour who ran into the street in his pyjamas, the activist responding to a text alert, the local imam, and the schoolboy who diverted from his route to biology class. Some were seasoned campaigners, others had never attended a protest before. Together they formed a spontaneous wall of solidarity.
The timing of the raid raises uncomfortable questions. Conducted on Eid, a day of celebration following Ramadan, it might have been expected to dampen resistance. Instead, it appeared to galvanise it. As one activist remarks in the film, the authorities had time on their side but the community had water. As the hours wore on, a nearby bus shelter became an impromptu support station, stocked with donated drinks, snacks and even slices of Eid cake.
Bustos Sierra, whose father fled Chile after the 1973 coup, is sensitive to the layers of history beneath the surface. He weaves in archive footage of Glasgow’s rent strikes and shipyard occupations, grounding the protest in a longer tradition of working class defiance. His previous film, Nae Pasaran, explored the Scottish Rolls-Royce workers who refused to service engines for the Chilean air force under Pinochet. That same belief in local action rippling outwards is present here.
The film also acknowledges contradictions. Contributors reflect on Glasgow’s links to the transatlantic slave trade, a reminder that the city’s radical self image exists alongside a more troubling past. It is a thoughtful touch that prevents the documentary from slipping into easy myth making.
At the centre of the story is the anonymous protester known as Van Man, who lay beneath the immigration van and wrapped his arm around the axle, preventing it from moving. His act of defiance gave others time to gather. Rather than elevating him into a simple hero, the film treats him as part of a wider collective effort. His words are voiced by Emma Thompson, who appears on screen briefly to make clear that while the face is hers, the testimony is not.
The tone throughout is measured but quietly stirring. Bustos Sierra is candid about his own absence that day, admitting he did not join the protest because he doubted anything positive would come of it. The film becomes, in part, an act of reflection on that hesitation. Its message is clear without ever feeling hectoring. Change, it suggests, requires presence. If people do not turn up, nothing shifts.
As debates over immigration grow sharper and parties such as Reform UK gain traction, Everybody to Kenmure Street feels both timely and quietly radical. It does not claim that every struggle ends in victory. Instead, it celebrates the rare moment when ordinary people stood their ground and won, and the sense of shared purpose that followed.
More than a record of a single protest, it is a reminder that solidarity is not abstract. It is built in real time, by neighbours stepping out of their front doors and deciding, together, to stay.
