London Socialist Film Co-op Presents: After the Apology 18

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with members of Support Not Separation, a coalition to end the unwarranted and damaging separation of children from their mother or other primary carer.

Suellyn thought the NSW Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) would only remove children in extreme cases until her own grandchildren were taken in the middle of the night. Hazel decided to take on the FACS system after her fourth grandchild was taken into state care. Jen Swan expected to continue to care for her grandchildren but she was deemed unsuitable by FACS, a shock not just to her but to her sister, Deb, who was, at the time, a FACS worker. The rate of Indigenous child removal has increased at an exponential rate since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered the apology to the ‘stolen generations’ in 2008. Hazel started Grandmothers Against Removals (GMAR) as a response to the rising rates of child removal and along the way she has been joined by families across Australia in the battle to bring the kids home. Together are not only taking on the system, they are changing it.

The London Socialist Film Co-Op was established in the early 1990s as part of a solidarity movement with the striking miners of 1984/5 and as a response to the media manipulation around the strike. Today we continue to present films which pose a counterpoint to the dominant voices in political media. Our events provide a space for debate through Q&As with speakers at the centre of socialist filmmaking and politics.