The Old Oak (2023) // SJCPH x St John's Reading Group

The St John’s Reading Group in collaboration with the St John’s Picturehouse will be holding a screen and discussion surrounding The Old Oak (2023). With our guest speakers, detailed below, we hope this will be a very interesting discussion around the change to mining towns and the status of refugees in this context; as well as the relation to the biopsychosocial model of health for those implicated. We will be screening the film on the Picturehouse cinema-grade projector from 6pm with discussion subsequently at around 8pm Premise: Pub landlord TJ Ballantyne, living in a previously thriving mining community in County Durham, struggles to hold onto his pub and keep it as the one public space where those remaining can meet in the town. The film demonstrates the impact on a previously thriving and tight knit mining town, of the way that the mine was closed, and the impacts on health and welfare. Echoes of the collective community of the past become a noisy crescendo of dissonance but end in a new collective. The film revolves around the concept of solidarity illustrated by the phrase "When you eat together, you stick together". Syrian refugees arrive in the town in northern England, devastated by the tragic collapse of a local mine. The village's dire economic situation worsens with the arrival of the refugees, exacerbating tensions between local residents and the new arrivals. But Ballantyne strikes up a friendship with one of the refugees, Yara and both have stories of suffering and a view of community that bring them together. Information about guest speakers: Zeina Al Azmeh is a Centenary Research Fellow at Selwyn College and an affiliated lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Educated in Syria, the US, and the UK, Zeina completed her PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge in 2021 where she examined the role of exiled Syrian academics and intellectuals in civil resistance since 2011. Paul Bennett was educated and grew up in the coal mining fraternity in Colville, North-West Leicestershire. He has been involved in managing closure of 3 mines with the loss of 2,800 jobs. He will lead discussion on the message of the film in relation to his experience of the impact of the closures on the local communities; and how this relates to their social, physical and emotional health and inequalities across the North-South divide Open to all Students and Staff at University of Cambridge Tickets are £4! (including booking fee) Sunday 10th March 2024, 6pm Palmerston Room, Fisher Building, St John's College, Cambridge We show our films using a cinema grade DCP projector and our events are open to all staff and students at Cambridge at ARU. The venue is wheelchair accessible with space for up to 10 wheelchair users. Seating is padded. If there are any other access accommodations we can make contact us at: [email protected] If you are unable to make it and would like a refund, please contact us and we will process a refund for you. Please note that the refund excludes booking fee.