RIOT ON REDCHURCH STREET THE DIRECTORS CUT (2012/2025) Golden State Film Festival 2025

I've watched RIOT ON REDCHURCH STREET twice now and despite the fact that I really don't think the film works narratively at all, I am absolutely stunned by the filmmaking. I simply can't look away because writer director Trevor Miller has made something I can't look away from.

RIOT was started about over a decade ago and was never really finished because life, bankruptcies and other things got in the way. Wanting to finish it the way he wanted to Miller kept pushing until he found a producer who would let him finish it his way.

The film is a supposed to be a the story of a record producer and two of the performers from his label who are forming a love triangle. The events are taking place in an English city where there is racial tension. To be honest some of that is there but a lot of it isn't. I'm not going to lie and say I have any real idea what happens in the film, because I don't. The film plays out as a series of scenes that don't wholly connect up. Watching the film I had the sense that a lot of connecting material was missing. I kept wondering where the rest of it was. This feels like a series of gritty snap shots of some people on the edge, but not a full on portrait. To be honest I had to read all the press material to make sense of what is going on.

At the same time everything else in this film is a stunning achievement. Say what you will about Trevor Miller as a writer, as a director he is gangbusters. Stunningly filmed so that the film feels like a have remembered dream the film is alive and vital in ways that almost no other film is. We are in these places with real people. The editing is equally dynamic. A lot of times films like this with overlays and text and multiple images can feel over edited but here it adds to the vitality.

Its a weird thing to say this say but I don't love the film's narrative, but there  is so much to the filmmaking and the sequences and the performances that I want to see it again.

Your mileage will vary, but if you want to see a staggering cinematic achievement that potentially portends the arrival of a cinematic voice give RIOT ON REDCHURCH STREET a try.