Joe the Chainsmith + Coventry Kids

Philip Donnellan's first film, a 50s snapshot of chain-making community Cradley Heath.

More carefully staged than his later work, Philip Donnellan’s directing debut captures chainmaking community Cradley Heath over the course of one weekend. We follow local legend Joe Mallen from bashing links to pub songs to whippet-racing on Sunday afternoon, the wistful soundtrack and Phil Drabble’s voice-over adding to the sense of a vanishing world.

Made two years later, Coventry Kids finds Donnellan taking a more experimental approach to actuality. Subtitled ‘People of a Restless City’, it explores Coventry’s precarious industrial boom and a cultural mix which includes teddy-boys, nuclear protestors, West Indian domino-players and Scottish job-hunters. Listen out for Peggy Seeger’s banjo.

See this screening and all other Donnellan events at mac birmingham for £40.