Mary Kelly

“The Nightcleaners” is set in the context of the campaign (1970-1972) to unionize the women who cleaned office blocks at night and were being victimized and underpaid. Intending at the outset to make a campaign film, the Collective was forced to turn to new forms in order to represent the forces at work between the cleaners, the Cleaner's Action Group and the Unions - and the complex nature of the campaign itself.

A single close-up shot records the artist stroking her abdomen, at full term, as the unborn baby moves.

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.

“The Nightcleaners” is set in the context of the campaign (1970-1972) to unionize the women who cleaned office blocks at night and were being victimized and underpaid. Intending at the outset to make a campaign film, the Collective was forced to turn to new forms in order to represent the forces at work between the cleaners, the Cleaner's Action Group and the Unions - and the complex nature of the campaign itself.

A single close-up shot records the artist stroking her abdomen, at full term, as the unborn baby moves.

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.