Black Sheep

“My grandparents and your grandparents fought for our country and fought for the freedoms of our country,” a man tells Sam with conviction at the start of this raw and powerful directing debut. “And that’s being taken away from us, slowly but surely.” The impressionable teenager nods in agreement. He can’t wait to join the street protest by the English Defence League (EDL), a far-right anti-Islam group in Britain. Despite warnings that the march could get violent, Sam decides to take his younger brother Jack along. The young working-class brothers get ready to leave for the protest together – their parents are nowhere to be seen. The brothers are relaxed in front of the camera, and Sam in particular is often filmed in close-up. This slants the documentary in the direction of fiction, because the focus always lies on the experience of the two boys. Once they arrive at the protest, where the atmosphere is aggressive and threatening, the two brothers react very differently.