part of The Child Inside Us All, a season of artists’ films selected by Let’s Make Art, in collaboration with Film and Video Umbrella.
Melanie Manchot’s Celebration (Cyprus Street) is a collective portrait of the residents of a street in East London, filmed on a day when lively outdoor revelries are taking place.
Communual street parties have long been a feature of British social life, usually occasioned at moments of national significance: a royal wedding, coronation or jubilee, or a victory in war. Under the banner of the Union Jack, and other colourful, ceremonial bunting, these events, although largely intended to instil a feeling of patriotic pride and identity, also fostered a local spirit of togetherness. In those parts of British towns and cities that had been most informed by the presence and influence of migration, these open-air, open-door festivities often helped to promote a real sense of belonging and commonality.
Manchot conducted extensive researches into the social history of East London, convening a public-facing, drop-in space called ‘The Street’ near Whitechapel Art Gallery where people could share photographs and swap stories of past street parties and other communal gatherings. She also spent several months talking to residents of nearby Cyprus Street in Bethnal Green, to see whether they might consider reviving the tradition, collaborating with them on preparations for the party, which would take shape in a form and at a time of their choosing.
Celebration (Cyprus Street) was filmed on that nominated day (a sunny Saturday in September 2009), and mobilises some of the distinctive conventions of both cinema and photographic portraiture – a long 35mm tracking shot, filmed from a crane on a slow-moving truck, weaves its way past tables and through mingling crowds until it stops, mid-street, as people assemble for a group portrait. Holding still, and in relative silence, for almost two minutes, the crowd slowly disperses before the camera wends its way further down the street. Over the course of this single take, which lasts for eleven minutes, we learn a lot about Cyprus Street – its gradual but growing gentrification, and noticeable changes in its demographic, from the white, working-class area it used to typify. A celebration on the street, Manchot’s film is also a celebration of the street, in its contemporary complexity, vivacity and diversity.
Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and supported by Arts Council England. 2010, 19 minutes. Additionally funded by Film London and the UK Film Council Digital Archive Film Fund and supported by the National Lottery.
Merzschmerz was commissioned as part of the group project MerzBank. 2017, 15 minutes.
Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella. Supported by Arts Council England.
Artist Bio:
London-based visual artist and filmmaker Melanie Manchot employs photography, film, video and sound to form sustained enquiries into our individual and collective identities. The work interrogates and employs acts of care, resistance and communality to engage in discourses on social and political urgencies of our societies. Her films investigate innovative forms of storytelling with an acute understanding of the power of filmmaking to engage participation and forms of collectivity.
Manchot’s artwork has featured in musuem and gallery exhibitions internationally and she is currently working towards a large solo show at John Hansard Gallery, Southampton in early 2026. Her first feature film, STEPHEN, commissioned by Liverpool Biennial, addresses gambling, substance misuse, recovery and mental health through both narrative fiction and documentary. It had its cinematic release through Modern Film in 2024 and continues to be shown in exhibitions as a multi-channel installation. Manchot is currently working towards her second feature film: One Day as a Tiger. In 2025/2026, Manchot will also direct her first fiction feature, Self Storage.
Her work is held in many public collections and was presented in a major survey show at museum MAC/VAL, Paris 2018. Selected solo exhibitions: STEPHEN, The Exchange, Penzance, 2024;
Alpine Diskomiks, Parafin, London, 2022; Black Snow, White Out, Museum Lumen, Italy, 2021; Mountainworks (Montafon), InnSitu, Innsbruck, Austria (2019); Open Stage/Back Stage, Kunsthaus Pasquart, Switzerland (2019); She completed her MA in Photography at The Royal College of Art in London in 1992.
