Film Screening: THREADS

Nominated for seven BAFTA TV Awards in 1985 and winner of Best Single Drama; Best Design; Best Film Cameraman; Best Film Editor.

"We're trying to tell the public the truth about what could happen", said author Barry Hines, who also wrote Kes. Director and Producer, Mick Jackson, started out with the questions: "What does a nuclear war entail? What are the short, medium and long-term effects?" He talked to scientists in Britain, the USA and USSR, defence experts, civil defence experts, doctors, psychologists and strategists. He discovered enormous volumes of research in journals, inaccessible to the public. Hines and Jackson both attended a civil defence training course for local government officers. Threads is thus as accurate and scientifically factual as possible.

It's a portrait of Britain up to fifteen years after a nuclear exchange. Shockingly realistic in its portrayal of what happens to people in Sheffiend, which lies in the centre of the country, it gives documentary explanations for the outcomes shown. The title refers to the myriad essential connections that hold our civilisation together.

In 1983, ITV broadcast The Day After, a US nuclear film sanitised for family viewing, which cost $7m. Threads cost only £300,000 and was first shown on BBC2 in September 1984, with simultaneous broadcasts in several European countries. The BBC received many phone calls, with 70 per cent approving. After watching it, Labour's then Defence spokesman, Denzil Davies, said: "My immediate reaction is the world has got to get rid of these dreadful weapons." The shocking impact and urgent warnings carried by Threads remain as important and powerful now as they were forty years ago.

This screening has been licensed by the BFI, under the Performers' Alliance Agreement (PAA). Members of Equity, the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, or the Musicians' Union are entitled to a £1.00 refund on tickets, on production of their union membership card.

Host or Publisher Ruskin House Film Screen