The Battle for Orgreave

The miners' strike 1984 was one of the longest and most brutal in British labour history. A community fighting for jobs and survival was wholly denigrated and depicted as violent by the majority of the media. THE BATTLE FOR ORGREAVE puts the record straight, as miners recount their own history, their economic and political struggles over decades and the trial they endured for 48 days in Sheffield when charged with riot at Orgreave - facing life imprisonment.

Containing compelling testimonies, emotive cinematography, in depth analysis coupled with meticulous detail of the mass picket and the ensuing events of June 18 1984 at the Orgreave coking plant, the documentary also has unique footage of police violence – all these make this an historic and important document of our time. See the film at the British Film Institute, visit www.bfi.org.uk or purchase from Journeyman Pictures at www.journeyman.tv.

"YVETTE VANSON'S grimly scathing investigation brings complicated political issues back to earth with a bump .... a grainy, punchy, emotionally affecting horror story, one concerned with shrinking freedoms and growing bitterness."

Time Out

The Battle for Orgreave - The Sequel

Critical Eye, Channel 4, 1991

In 1984 at Orgreave coking works, police and miners clashed. Labelled 'thugs and bully boys', over 100 miners were charged with riot and faced life imprisonment. Six years later the tables turned and the miners won compensation from the police for malicious prosecution and wrongful imprisonment.

"VANSON WARDLE'S excellent sequel to their documentary ... what becomes very plain here is the cold, contemptuous fury exercised by a government obsessed with destroying one section of the British working class simply because it was unionised. Essential viewing."

City Limits

"The film presents a powerful indictment of police behaviour, while raising wider questions of accountability."

The Times