With little more than a toothbrush to his name and of ‘no fixed abode’, 19-year-old Rabbit has dedicated his life to small acts of protest against corruption. He spends most nights living out of a tent in an eco-village in Greater London, except when, as captured in the short documentary Small Protests, he’s on a mission to expose systemic abuse and greed. Set in 2009, during the UK parliamentary expenses scandal – in which several members of parliament (MPs) were exposed for misuse of government allowances – the film follows Rabbit and a merry band of fellow protesters as they squat in the ‘primary residence’ of two MPs in Brentford, west London. In doing so, they helped to prove that these MPs weren’t in fact residing at that address, and were therefore misusing public funds. Given the punk aesthetic of Rabbit and his crew, and their spirited, youthful discussions about how to bring down the system, it would be easy to write them off as naive idealists. But, as the UK director Zillah Bowes’s film documents, that would be to underestimate the lived commitment to their ideals and the challenges of a life built on dissent – which has become only more difficult since the government’s proposed restrictions on protest in 2021.
Director: Zillah Bowes
video
Meaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
11 minutes
video
Making
On the Norwegian coast, a tree is transformed into a boat the old-fashioned way
6 minutes
video
Animals and humans
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough
14 minutes
video
Computing and artificial intelligence
A future in which ‘artificial scientists’ make discoveries may not be far away
9 minutes
video
History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
13 minutes
video
Meaning and the good life
Leading 1950s thinkers on the search for happiness in trying times
29 minutes
video
War and peace
Two Ukrainian boys’ summer unfolds just miles from the frontlines
22 minutes
video
Nature and landscape
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker
10 minutes
video
Love and friendship
Never marry a man you love too much, and other views on romance in Sierra Leone
5 minutes