Free Party: A Folk History

They wanted the freedom to party, but the state saw them as the enemy within. Free Party: A Folk History tells the previously untold story of the free party movement, Castlemorton Common Festival and the Criminal Justice Act that followed.
 
Free Party is an independently made feature documentary charting the birth of the free party movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and how its impact sparked a revolution around the world, from raves and festivals to politics and protest.
 
The film follows the inception of the movement, a meeting between ravers and the new-age travellers during Margaret Thatcher’s last days in power, and the explosive years that followed, leading up the infamous Castlemorton Common Festival in 1992 – the largest ever illegal rave, which provoked the drastic change of the laws of trespass with the notorious introduction of the Criminal Justice Act in 1994.
 
Aaron Trinder, the film’s director, says the documentary covers ‘the last great unifying youth movement, before digital cameras and the internet, which really challenged the authorities, connected environmental awareness with music and questioned laws on land rights and trespass’. The themes of the movement as depicted in Free Party are relevant once again, as new laws on trespassing and protesting are being introduced to a new generation of young people.
 
Trinder is an award-winning writer, director and producer and founder of Trinder Films. He’s directed short films, been second unit on feature films and his current focus is on narratively rich feature documentary films.