Minor Victories Made a Film About Skating Empty Towns in Tory Britain [Premiere]

The supergroup's short film looks at memories of growing up, skating about, and trying to feel part of something.

March 30, 2016, 1:15pm

British supergroup Minor Victories are a band foremost but they're also filmmakers, too. The group, who consist of Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite, Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell, Editors’ Justin Lockey, and his brother James, have their debut self-tilted album coming out on Play It Again Sam in the UK and Fat Possom in the US on 3 June 2016, but by then they'll already have two short films under their belt.

The first short, Film One, came out last year and was made by Justin and James under their filmmaking partnership Hand Held Cine Club—the pair make all the group's music videos and films. Today they release the followup Film Two, a piece to complement their latest single "A Hundred Ropes" and complement the cinematic soundscapes on the album.

The making of the album was one that took place online without meeting in the flesh, the music coalescing "by swapping ideas, songs, fragments and finished recordings via broadband connections." For them, the short films are a chance to not only showcase the group's aesthetic, but also bond as a band by exploring experiences and memories.

"The only thing that connects them [the films] is the visual sense, the way we cut and what we like seeing, how we make films, which in our case is a self taught very personal manner," Justin Lockey explains to The Creators Project. "This makes sense to us for a few reasons, mostly because the Minor Victories album was made without any of us being in the room together, or before we even met each other so there was a disconnect from the start. In a band there is usually a shared history and group relationship mentality, a togetherness and friendships and bonds developed over time, with this record we didn't have this to start from. But, not having that to start with makes you look at things in a very different manner, and also in some ways give you a more expressive and restraint free perspective to work from."

Image courtesy of Minor Victories

Film Two follows a group of friends as they kill time skating around, eating take away, and hanging out. It's shot in crisp black-and-white with a dreamy feel, as Goswell's ethereal tones and the elegant music drift into and punctuate the narrative, which references the bands' experiences growing up in an austerity Britain of a not-too-dissimilar age.

The film also reflects the shared passion for skateboarding between Braithwaite and the Lockeys ("I guess in this film it replaces that band bond," Justin notes) and their time spent skating around desolate towns under a Tory government nearly four decades ago. It's pertinent because now, in a 21st century Britain full of food banks and job losses in the manufacturing industries, there's more than a sense of déjà vu.

"Empty towns to skate through, long forgotten by governments, no work, no money, no future. In this film we tried to explore that with the backdrop and the brooding sense of history repeating," says Justin. "In our case the specter of the 80s Tory government again looms large on most of Britain, north of London, especially the North of England where we're from. The only difference this time is it's wearing a sharper suit and smiles more whilst it fucks you over."