'Billboards still work': Frances McDormand backs Grenfell activists

The winner of the Oscar for best actress, Frances McDormand, has spoken in support of activists seeking justice over the Grenfell Tower fire, who used her film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri as inspiration for a publicity campaign.

Billboards were driven through central London last month saying “71 dead”, “And still no arrests?”, “How Come?”

The Justice 4 Grenfell campaigners took inspiration from the central theme of the film, in which McDormand’s character uses the same medium to call attention to the unsolved rape and murder of her daughter.

“Billboards still work, so I think that it’s really exciting,” said the American actor after accepting her award, praising “the idea that activists are taking that kind of statement and putting it out there”.

“It started actually with the Grenfell Tower fire investigation, then it leapfrogged to [the] Miami gun control situation, it was outside the UN ... That’s the kind of power that an image can have and that’s what we’re making, we’re making powerful images.”

McDormand followed Stormzy in using a public platform to highlight the Justice 4 Grenfell campaign. The British grime artist demanded answers from the prime minister, Theresa May, over the fire during his performance at the Brit awards.

Moyra Samuels, one of the people behind the Grenfell billboards, was quoted by the BBC as saying: “It’s not just politicians who are taking note of what happened. We are being effective at raising the issues on a worldwide stage.”

Source: theguardian