Requiem
For Protest
The Installation
Just weeks after documentary filmmakers Liz Smith and Kim Halliday released The Line We Crossed, their film about the repression of protest rights in the UK, Palestine Action was proscribed, becoming the first domestic direct action protest group to be classified as a terrorist organisation.
Activists from Defend Our Juries organised quickly and began the ‘Lift The Ban’ campaign. Having documented the emergence of Defend Our Juries in The Line We Crossed, Liz felt compelled to continue to film as this next chapter in this story of repression played out.
After filming the absurd and dystopian sight of police officers carrying away peaceful protesters in their hundreds in Trafalgar Square she called Kim. Feeling she had witnessed something akin to the final death knell of the right to protest, she asked him to compose a requiem to accompany the footage. And thus, Requiem For Protest came into being.
The story did not end there. The ‘Lift The Ban’ vigils continued and Requiem For Protest became a series. Each iteration evolved musically, moving from a requiem, to an Italian folk song, to a fugue, and finally to a tango. The vigils continued as the appeal against the proscription took its course. In the first year of the campaign more than 3,500 arrests were made.
The Requiem For Protest installation is a reworking of the short film series into a piece that is designed to be experienced in a darkened room. It runs on a loop. You can choose to dip in and out, or to sit through all four acts letting the music, words and images float around you. It is a moment to pause and reflect on what it means when we lose the right to peaceful protest.
Where can I watch it?
The Quakers, Worcestershire and Shropshire Area Meeting
- Sat 22 Aug
- Time to be confirmed
A single screening, shown as part of a compilation of shorts
- Thu 30 Jul
- 21:30
Friends’ Meeting House, 6 Mount Street, Manchester
- Fri 17 Jul
- 18:15–20:00
- Sat 18 Jul
- 10:00–16:00
- Sun 19 Jul
- 13:00–16:00
Free admission
We're actively seeking venues to host Requiem For Protest — as a continuous installation or a single screening. If you can host a screening, please get in touch.
Get in touch
“The suffragettes, they could have been suppressed under this proscription. But frankly, Palestine Action’s members spraying paint on military aircraft in Brize Norton is positively moderate by comparison with what the suffragettes did.”
Speaking at the House of Lords debate on the proscription of Palestine Action on 3 July 2025
“But take into account that we may not be in government one day, it may be the authoritarian right and they will take this further and faster and deeper than we ever have. So we should be putting in fireguards now, protecting our democracy.”
Speaking on 9 May 2023 following the introduction of new anti-protest laws
The Line We Crossed
Liz Smith first started documenting the repression of UK protest rights in early 2023 when she began filming for the feature documentary The Line We Crossed. What she did not know at the time is that she was also documenting the emergence of Defend Our Juries as a campaigning group.
In the first days of filming she recorded the moment Trudi Warner came out of The Inner London Crown Court after having been arrested on the orders of the judge and held all day in the cells below. Her crime? Holding a banner in silent vigil outside the court stating a legal principle that jurors have the right to acquit according to their conscience.
“Jurors you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience”
The Line We Crossed was released in June 2025 and has been screened in over 75 venues. It is now available to stream online.
Further Reading
Britain’s Political Prisoners
A report by Paddy Friend, David Whyte and Guy Zilberman, published by the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice. Copies accompany the installation; you can also read it in full online.
Read the report (PDF)
Support Our Work
Can you help support our new feature film?
Nowhere To Go is a new feature documentary from the makers of The Line We Crossed, The Conspiracists and Requiem For Protest — now in post-production, with release planned for Spring 2027.
Filmed over four years across Poland, France and the UK, it traces two men who separately cross from Belarus into Poland and survive repeated evictions in France before making it across the Channel in a small boat. As governments introduce increasingly restrictive measures, the film looks closely at how the asylum system works in practice — and how its consequences are felt both by those navigating it and by the communities around them.