Set in the not-so-distant future Polly II – part satirical sci-fi, part soap opera and part Brechtian ‘Lehrstueck’ – portrays the lives of pirates and outcasts fighting against property developers and government agents in the flooded ruins of East London, a lawless zone set to become the latest in luxury waterside living. Alluding to Polly (1728), the censored sequel to John Gay’s popular Beggar’s Opera (1727), Polly II imagines a future insurrection against poverty, displacement and judicial terror, drawing on current anti-gentrification struggles and eighteenth-century accounts of East London’s radical working class, anti-colonial uprisings in the Caribbean, and their connections through revolutionary movements across the Atlantic. Realised with a cast of local amateur actors and housing activists and replete with DIY special effects and musical interludes, “the look of the film is a febrile haze of smoke, grey river and lowering skies…achieving a digital uncanny that conjures up both the photoshop-gothic of tourist brochures and moody Dutch landscape miniatures” (Marina Vishmidt).
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.