Behind the Lines

A portrait of the past and present of the city of Dunfermline, Scotland's ancient capital.

A portrait of Mrs Khadeeja Begum, a widowed Pakistani mother of two in 1970s Balsall Heath, Birmingham.

They're young, unemployed and on the march - from Glasgow, Liverpool and Swansea to London.

A marital breakdown is brought to life through a mixture of dramatisation, monologue, montage and animation. Through the perspectives of the husband, the lawyer, the couple’s parents and their “home help”, a picture emerges of the transactional nature and economic fall-out of marriage, along with issues of class and gender politics affecting single mothers.

Four women speak movingly to the camera on their experience of the General Strike and life in the 1930s and 40s in a depressed South Welsh mining village.