1984 is return­ing to cin­e­mas in protest of Don­ald Trump

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were strik­ing thir­teen.” 4 April marks the date when Win­ston Smith, the pro­tag­o­nist of George Orwell’s clas­sic dystopi­an nov­el ​‘1984’, begins writ­ing a diary in rebel­lion against the rul­ing author­i­tar­i­an régime.

Orwell’s depic­tion of a soci­ety gov­erned by extreme sur­veil­lance and cen­sor­ship has been made into two fea­ture films since its pub­li­ca­tion – Michael Anderson’s 1956 adap­ta­tion and Michael Radford’s lat­er ver­sion, apt­ly released in 1984.

On Tues­day 4 April, 2007, Radford’s film will return to the big screen across Europe and North Amer­i­ca, as over 190 inde­pen­dent cin­e­mas protest against the cur­rent US President.

Don­ald Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly its asso­ci­a­tion with ​“alter­na­tive facts” and ​“fake news”, has prompt­ed count­less com­par­isons to the Par­ty in Orwell’s nov­el, which is led by the mys­te­ri­ous Big Brother.

The screen­ings also fol­low Trump’s pro­posed fed­er­al bud­get, which includes plans to elim­i­nate both the Nation­al Endow­ment for the Arts and the Nation­al Endow­ment for the Humanities.

Unit­ed States of Cin­e­ma, the organ­is­ers of the event, hopes to ​“ini­ti­ate a much-need­ed com­mu­ni­ty con­ver­sa­tion at a time when the exis­tence of facts and basic human rights are under attack.”

Par­tic­i­pat­ing the­atres will donate a por­tion of the pro­ceeds from screen­ing 1984 to local organ­i­sa­tions, with some pledg­ing to fund future com­mu­ni­ty-relat­ed and edu­ca­tion­al programming.

In a rare inter­view, we recent­ly sat down with Michael Rad­ford to dis­cuss the mak­ing of the film, and what it was like work­ing with the late, great John Hurt.