The Plan: That Came From The Bottom Up
Synopsis
""It’s an insult to our skills and intelligence that we can produce a Concorde and not enough powerful heaters for all those old-age pensioners who are dying in the cold." A worker at Lucas Aerospace eloquently sums up the core problem of contemporary Western society – one that caters to the interests of a wealthy few. He’s one of the designers of the ambitious strategy proposed by the workforce, in 1976, to shift their company’s assets to manufacture socially-useful products, which was ultimately undermined by both the government and corporate interests.
Director Steve Sprung brilliantly draws their story into the present, delivering it with great intelligence, clarity and civic commitment. 'The Plan: That Came From The Bottom Up' is a gripping essay, reflecting on the dark consequences of capitalism on society and proposing an encouraging alternative for a troubling present. "(LFF Brochure)
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Documentary Competition - World premiere
Details
- Year
- 2018
- Type of project
- Features
- Running time
- 212 mins
- Director
-
Steve Sprung
- Producer
- Luis Correia
- Executive Producer
- Sylvia Stevens, Peter Day
- Editor
- Steve Sprung
- Screenwriter
- Steve Sprung
- Director of Photography
- Ralph Bosch, Steve Sprung
- Sound
- Nuno Carvalho
Categories
Production Status
Production Company
Portugal, UK coproduction
An LX Filmes (PT), Faction Films (UK) production
Faction Films
Sylvia Stevens26 Shacklewell Lane
London
E8 2EZ
Page updates
This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.
See also
You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.
Adlais
Director: Alex Darby, George Leith, Sophie Mei Birkin
Year: 2026
Adlais (Echo) weaves Welsh language folklore and histories through their shared subjects of poetry and drowning – and asks whether we’re listening to the past as it surfaces today.
The End of Times
Director: Luca Anzalone
Year: 2026
Caught between her indigenous Buryat roots—where art is a shamanic window between worlds—and a Western market that treats culture as a commodity, artist Yuma Radne constructs a monumental canvas to confront the psychological distortions of colonization at the edge of an irreversible era. "Either you make art, or you suffer. It’s like a curse." For painter Yuma Radne, the act of creation is not an aesthetic choice, but an ancestral code carried in the blood. Moving from a remote Siberian village to the high-stakes European art world, Yuma finds herself navigating a surreal landscape where sacred cultural identity is rapidly converted into a luxury product. Through intimate studio dialogues and raw philosophical reflections, the film captures the gruelling physical and mental labour behind her graduation masterpiece, The End of Times. Centred around a gargantuan erupting booze (a traditional Buryat dumpling) mutated into an absurd, monumental symbol of a colonised and erased national identity, the film transcends a typical artist portrait. It becomes a vital, cosmic meditation on why humanity continues to create art in the face of systemic collapse—and a powerful testament to an indigenous culture refusing to be reduced to a souvenir.
Tobias and the Angel
Director: Mark Forbes
Year: 2021
Tobias & The Angel are famous for their shop in West London where all the different aspects of what they do that are combined to make it feel like home. The shop is owned and run by Angel Hughes and has a story to tell about her family beginnings.