In mid-1980s Britain, the triumph of neoliberalism in Margaret Thatcher's realm seemed to be irreversible. Ann and Eduardo, two longstanding members of Cinema Action, a socialist documentary film collective established in 1968, set out to film their first feature film. ROCINANTE (GB 1986) is a mythological road movie about squatters and hackers starring John Hurt, Maureen Douglass and Ian Dury. The analysis of Britishness and social landscapes by Raymond Williams are amalgamated with the dramatic bucolic nature of the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and the transgressive dream England of Derek Jarman. We do not know the film but we are curious about how the association between documentary and fictional practice, a problem that Harun Farocki was confronted with in the 1970s and 80s, will develop. (17.3.)
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