Cost of Living is a timely short film, curated from more than half a century of archive footage, that reflects on the pandemic cycles of boom and bust that continue to affect us.

As we live through the deepest cost of living crisis for over fifty years, the film expresses the fury and anger of generations whose essential needs for safe housing, secure work and full bellies go unfulfilled. With an uncanny sense of déjà vu, we see empty petrol pumps, food banks and government tips for saving money. They evoke a past that feels uncomfortably contemporary.

Commissioned by York St John University’s Cinema and Social Justice Project and made by the Yorkshire and North East Film Archives, the film reveals our collective memories of past crises, and the cries for social and economic justice that continue to ring so loudly in our ears today.