The film Pride dramatizes an obscure historical anecdote about a faction of London-based gay and lesbian activists who formed an unlikely kinship with Welsh miners during the violent 1985 working-class strikes in Britain. Though it’s a true tale even lead actor Ben Schnetzer found it hard to believe.
“I couldn’t believe that it was a true story and that it wasn’t a story that everybody was aware of as far as the labour movement — but the gay and lesbian rights movement as well” says Schnetzer during the film’s recent Toronto International Film Festival première. “It was an amazing script and having a chance to play a hand at telling this story was humbling.”
Surrounded by such British luminaries as Bill Nighy and Vera Drake star Imelda Staunton (also eager to enlighten audiences of the muzzled memoir) Schnetzer plays the late Mark Ashton — a young gay activist who leads the pack of protestors into sponsoring a small mining village after he recognizes the workers were enduring an eerily familiar type of political abuse and marginalization. For American-born Schnetzer (who “got his foot in the door” studying drama in London for a couple of years) it was an important historical lesson not lost on him.
“Growing up in the States I didn’t know the ins and outs of the miners’ strikes. I didn’t know that it was almost a civil war in that sense — it had that sentiment about it” he admits. The breakout thespian (best known for playing a Jewish fugitive in the 2013 holocaust drama The Book Thief) studied Ken Loach’s The Spirit of 45 to get informed. In that documentary Loach not only uncovers how the U.K. banded together to rebuild infrastructure and resources following the war years but also how former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dismantled such policies and inflamed disparity between the classes.
“It was a real education getting versed in the goings on at that time” says Schnetzer who’s quick to point out the movie only simmers in political rhetoric. “A big appeal of the film is that it is universal — that which unites us is greater than that which divides us. It’s a film about human rights but it’s also a film about community and standing up for what you believe in and standing up for what’s right and I hope people walk away feeling inspired to carry just a little bit of that into their own lives.”
The movie which opens in Calgary this weekend won the Queer Palm award as the best LGBT film at this year’s Cannes Film Festival — in part because it’s not solely a story about the struggle for gay rights. The movie’s real strength is displaying the miners as equally bullied and it’s perhaps the reason why the story has been mostly buried for 30 years.
“At the time the mining community were so marginalized and demonized and vilified by the mainstream press and the government that I think it was in the best interests of the powers that be to sweep it under the rug” says Schnetzer. “They don’t want to show the police battering miners at the picket line they want to vilify the miners they want to demonize the gay community. They don’t want to show humanity and dignity and community so I think these stories it was easy for them to be forgotten.”
Schnetzer was also proud to bring Ashton’s legacy to the screen. The activist who sadly died from complications due to AIDS only years after the strike is still considered a pillar of the LGBT community as well as a strong touchstone for the Welsh mining community who still march arm-in-arm at the annual London Pride Parade.
“There wasn’t a whole lot [of information available] about Mark Ashton” says Schnetzer. “But I look at this film in my own way as a tribute to him and learning about his courage and his heroism was very inspiring to me. I hope that it shines a light on him as a real beacon and figurehead for human rights.”
