Student winners for the Manchester CRIME and JUSTICE Film Festival

Full details of the second Manchester Crime and Justice Film Festival will be released shortly. The first festival took place in May 2019.

Kevin Wong from the university’s Policy Evaluation and Research Unit (PERU) who lead the judging panel commented:

“We had two exceptional student choice entries so following the trend set by the recent awarding of the Booker Prize to two authors, we also took the decision to celebrate both. We’ll be screening Shoplifters (2018) Charlotte’s choice at the next year’s festival and Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Rebecca’s choice in 2021.

Charlotte studying for a PhD in English said of Shoplifters, which won the 2018 Palme d’Or at Cannes:

“It’s a lovely film. I really think it has a lot to contribute to conversations about crime and justice.”

PhD film student Rebecca said of Dog Day Afternoon – the Sydney Lumet directed classic, starring Al Pacino:

“I’m so glad to have found someone that both knows and loves this wholly underappreciated picture and can’t wait for its screening in the 2021 festival.”

The Manchester CRIME and JUSTICE Film Festival is sponsored by the university’s Department of Sociology and curated and organised by Kevin Wong and Gavin Bailey from PERU and Lucy Simpson Arts and Humanities Public Engagement Assistant. It’s mission is to use film to provoke debate and provide an alternative take on crime, justice and punishment in the twenty first century.

Full details of next year’s programme will shortly be available. You can sign-up here. Highlights will include: Justin Russell the Chief Inspector of Probation hosting a Q & A after the screening of Scum, the 1979 borstal drama; and Professor Shadd Maruna the author of the seminal Making good – how ex-convicts reform and rebuild their lives hosting a Q & A after the showing of the 1957 courtroom classic 12 Angry Men.

The festival will close with a double bill from acclaimed documentary film maker Rex Bloomstein. His latest feature - A second chance - supported by the Timpson Group will be introduced by Sir Martin Narey, PERU’s Visiting Professor and the former Director General of the Prison Service. Martin was inspired to join the Service after watching Rex’s 1981 BBC documentary about Strangeways, Manchester’s then notorious Victorian prison.