Key information
Date: Wed, 7 May 2025
Time: 18:30 – 20:30. Doors open at 6pm.
Location: The Folkestone Bookshop, 70-72 Tontine Street, Folkestone, CT20 1JP
About this event
Folkestone and the surrounding area in Kent has become a testing ground for Britain’s increasingly militarised borders. The Migrants’ Rights Network is proud to host a film screening featuring two groundbreaking films investigating violence and technology on the border:
- Dover 82, Aria Danaparamita
- Standing at the Gates of the Digital Hostile Environment: Britain’s Anduril Maritime Sentry Towers, Samuel Storey
This will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A.
What’s going on?
Between Hastings and Margate, there are at least eight Autonomous Surveillance Towers continuously scanning the horizons for people crossing the Channel in dinghies. Created by U.S.-based defence company Anduril Industries, these Maritime Sentry Towers are active agents in an increasingly automated system of border apartheid.
Together with researcher Samuel Storey, UK charity the Migrants’ Rights Network are trying to map the state of surveillance on the UK’s coast. However, in an increasingly opaque policy landscape where the State and their friends at tech companies attempt to shield themselves from scrutiny, trying to raise awareness of this is not without its challenges.
As part of the post-screening discussion and Q&A, we will discuss how to mobilise and support the community in Folkestone to collectively challenge the use of ASTs and other border technologies. You can find out more by checking out the research.
A huge thank you to The Folkestone Bookshop for hosting this film screening event. The Folkestone Bookshop is a radical, trans-run independent bookstore on the Kent coast providing rad books for rad folke.
Tickets
Free with registration (limited places – book early)
Travel support
MRN has a limited budget to cover bus fares to attend the event for those who need it. Please let us know in the registration form/ email [email protected]