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The Last of England plus Introduction

Sunday 16 March, 2025 at 7.30 p.m.

Introduced by James Mackay (co-producer, The Last of England).

In June 1987, Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government won its third term in power by a landslide. Derek Jarman’s antipathy to its values was well-established before the AIDS crisis, but his diagnosis as HIV positive in December 1986 deepened his sense of living in a catastrophic social and political landscape formed in the ‘embers of empire’. The Last of England was made in response to this context and is Jarman’s most devastating vision of Britain. Described by writer Jon Savage as ‘a visual rant of extraordinary power that pulled together all the strands of his previous work’, the film stars Tilda Swinton as Elizabeth I, wandering through the ruins of the present day, and boasts a soundtrack featuring Simon Fisher Turner, Andy Gill, Diamanda Galas and Marianne Faithfull.

Screening as part of the Derek Jarman: Modern Nature on Film season, programmed in collaboration with The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, which is currently presenting an exhibition focused on Jarman’s work in painting, film, queer activism and writing. Digging in Another Time: Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature is at Hunterian Art Gallery until 4 May 2025.

GFT 12 Rose Street, G3 6RB

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