Although informed by an international perspective, most of Karlin’s work focuses on the UK. An exception was the remarkable series of five films on the Nicaraguan revolution encompassing the popular guerrilla war of the late 1970’s, the development of the Sandinista government, the effects of the US-backed contra war, and the defeat of the FSLN in 1989. Rather than foregrounding the Sandinista leadership, the films speak from the grassroots, both urban and rural. This rare perspective portrays a revolution for what it is – an exhausting, uneven process.

Nicaragua Part 1: Voyages (1985)

Broadcast 14 October 1985 Channel 4 (ELEVENTH HOUR) (42 mins)
In 1978–79 American photographer Susan Meiselas documented the two insurrections that led to the overthrow of fifty years of dictatorship by the Somoza family in Nicaragua. Through an epistolary exchange over five unedited tracking shots across Meiselas’ photographs, the film articulates her relationship to the history she witnessed.

Nicaragua Part 2: The Making of a Nation (1985)

Broadcast 21 October 1985 Channel 4 (ELEVENTH HOUR) (80 mins)
Shot in 1983–84 and focusing on the work of the Historical Institute, this film witnesses how Nicaraguans are recovering their history, the memory of Sandino’s struggle, to transform their sense of identity.