Friday 5 July 2024, doors 17:00, start 18:00
Pullens Centre, 184 Crampton Street, SE17 3AE

Free and open to all.

In 1968, a series of protests at Columbia University in New York City were one among the various student demonstrations that occurred around the globe in the heyday of late 60s counterculture. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students discovered links between the university and the institutional apparatus supporting the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War. The protests resulted in the student occupation of many university buildings and the eventual violent removal of protesters. 

This film is a fictional re adaptation of autobiography, The Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary by James Simon Kunen and it was scripted by the prolific American playwright Israel Horovitz. It is about the rebellions of the 60s caught through the eyes of a Columbia College undergraduate during the spring of 1968, where in every western capital students were revolting against and questioning the authority and the conservatism of the previous generation. Originally the film was to be shot on Columbia University’s campus. However, Columbia backtracked and the crew moved to Berkeley instead. The film won the jury prize at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival.

Its title comes from a line spoken by Charlie to Simon, the protagonist, concerning what he called “the strawberry statement,” something the Dean said: ‘Whether students vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on a given issue means as much to me as if they were to tell me they like strawberries.’ The defence of the right to protest is only one of the very many themes that make this film still relevant today.