by Jon Baldwin
In 2022 the Manchester-based writer/director, and regular contributor to Culture Matters, Brett Gregory, released his debut working-class feature film, ‘Nobody Loves You and You Don’t Deserve to Exist’, on Amazon Prime.
The self-funded production was praised by progressive publications such as Jacobin in New York as ‘the best film about working-class Britain in years’, by Prospect in London as ‘a bruising, exhilarating exhibition of British working-class life’, and by Culture Matters’ very own Mike Quille, writing for The Morning Star’, as ‘a searing critical vision of modern Britain’.
At any other time you would imagine that such write-ups would serve as a springboard of sorts for a meaningful career in British independent cinema where existential working-class experiences could be explored further on behalf of an eager, insightful and conscientious audience.
Sadly, such halcyon days are long gone, however, especially since the UK arts sector is now on its knees. For example, according to BECTU 52% of media freelancers are currently out of work; an ALCS report on author incomes shows a 60% drop in median incomes since 2006; and a 2018 study by Queen Mary University in London found that unemployent rates in the acting profession are around 90%.
Moreover, discerning audiences themselves have also been pummelled by a succession of punitive neoliberal policies over the last 15 years instigated by an morally tattered Tory-led government, leaving us divided, decimated and disillusioned: Covid, Brexit, the Post Office scandal, extortionate energy prices, extreme austerity cuts, wholesale public sector redundancies, racially aggravated street riots, and the corporate contamination of our lakes and rivers, are just the tip of the iceberg.
In turn, on an international scale, our dire situation has been exacerbated by having to endure the utterly unthinkable on a daily basis: genocide in Gaza, war in Ukraine, and the return of Donald Trump as President of the United States.
As a result, a low-budget social surrealist film which performs a postmodern autopsy on 21st century working-classness in the north of England, did not appear high up on people’s 2023 ‘Must Watch’ lists.
It is of little surprise then to discover that Brett Gregory, 12 months after the release of this daring debut feature film, was, along with 354,000 other people up and down the country, unable to pay his rent or bills, and thus found himself homeless in October 2023.
Fortunately, due to concerted efforts from a number of supporters who have followed his creative career over the last 20 years, he was able to relocate from Hulme in Manchester to Bolton in Lancashire in November 2022, and there began to claim Universal Credit to keep his head above water.
Unfortunately, however, the borough of Bolton, formerly a 19th century boomtown in cotton spinning and textile manufacturing, is currently one of the most economically deprived areas in the UK. As a consequence, employment opportunities throughout the region are more or less zero.
Naturally, with economic survival at stake, you would assume that, after finding his feet, Brett would have begun to explore the media industry’s commercial opportunities as a consequence. AI content creation companies, in-play gaming advertisers and ‘meme management’ firms, to name but a few, are always on the lookout for media types, for example, to help to peddle their wares.
Brett, however, had other ideas.
Remarkably, he chose instead to produce a no-budget short film adaptation of Franz Kafka’s classic 1915 parable, ‘Before the Law’, from a working-class perspective, a highly audacious creative venture riddled with risks which took him – and his cast and crew – 11 months to complete.
Via an email exchange he explained to me that there were three primary factors behind his original rationale.
Firstly, he aimed to explore a number of institutional gatekeepers which, ultimately, prevent our lives from being lived to the full, and wider society from thriving like it should. Secondly, he wanted to demonstrate that the idea working-class creatives are unable to successfully tackle high art or classic literature is a myth perpetuated by the bourgeois intelligentsia in order to maintain their cultural privilege. And, thirdly, he needed evidence to prove to the DWP in Bolton that he wasn’t a suitable candidate for the position of supervisor at the local Morrisons, McDonald’s, and/or William Hill betting shop.
Fascinated by this desperately original approach to filmmaking, I decided to interview him in my capacity as Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at London Met University as part of a degree module I teach called ‘Independent Film Production in the UK’.
The overall aim of this interview was to find out more about his creative process, his relationship to funding (or lack of), the value he places on collaboration, his work with semi-professional actors, as well as his views on exhibition and promotion.
At the very least I believed this would go some way to help to demystify for my students the supposed ‘glamour’ which seems to eternally surround the whole movie-making business.
This 30 minute interview, understandably blunt and abrasive at times, can be listened to here on Spotify.
In turn, although Franz Kafka’s ‘Before the Law’ is not currently available to the public, Brett has given permission for Culture Matters’ readers to access its online screener here.
The password is (of course): kafkaesque
