THE DIRECTOR of the Sundance film festival spoke today of the importance of striking cinema workers being heard when they picket the opening night of the London event.

Picturehouse employees are staging two 24-hour strikes during London’s Sundance film festival over the company’s refusal to pay staff the living wage and recognise cinema workers’ union Bectu.

Workers are also fighting for proper sick pay, maternity and paternity pay and decent conditions in the workplace.

Festival director John Cooper stopped short of supporting the strike action, but said: “We do know that at Sundance we believe in freedom of speech so we really want to make sure that nothing interferes with that, that they are heard.

“I don’t know all the ins and outs of [the dispute], but I know it’s been a struggle.”

Mr Cooper added that he had spoken to representatives of the cinema chain, as well as its staff.

Bectu members at four Picturehouse cinemas in London began their picket of the festival today outside Picturehouse Central near Piccadilly Circus.

They will also picket the festival for 24 hours from 5am on Saturday, with workers from Central, Hackney, East Dulwich and Crouch End Picturehouses all expected to take part.

A Picturehouse spokesman said it was “deeply disappointed” by the decision to strike during Sundance, calling it “unnecessary and destructive” and claimed that “many staff” were ultimately paid “considerably higher” than the living or minimum wage.

But workers say the latest action in the dispute, which has lasted for nearly two years, is because Picturehouse has refused to negotiate, leaving them with “no choice.”

They previously accused Picturehouse of “trade union victimisation” after four Bectu union reps at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton were allegedly fired for union activities last June.

Obi Saiq, a striker at Hackney Picturehouse, said: “We take no pleasure in disrupting the festival but unless Picturehouse is willing to sit down and talk to its workers, we have no choice.

“We staff a chain of cinemas which makes over a hundred million pounds worth of profit but we go home to flats we can’t afford to rent, and regularly have to choose between heating and food.”