This documentary film is about an outlaw family from Wales, who were also one of the UK Traveller scene's most notorious punk groups.

Together with their children they toured the lost squats and no-go areas of the world, living and dying on the road.

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The story starts with a series of flashbacks to the 1980's and 1990's, as seen through the eyes of Josie and her brother Gwyn.

As some of the youngest members of the band they both appeared

onstage at punk gigs since they were toddlers.

 

We join them ten years after the road accident that killed their family and destroyed the band. The siblings were both involved in the accident and experienced traumatic injuries which they still carry with them today.

 

As two of our main interviewees, Gwyn & Josie lead us through the story of the band's remarkable history and tell us about their lives as children growing up

travelling from squat to squat  

 

Formed by two teenage brothers from the Welsh Valleys, 2000DS travelled the world, sometimes in tandem with other collectives like the Mutoid Waste Company & Spiral Tribe. At the tail end of the 1980's there was still a large squatters network in the cities of Europe & North America. In a convoy of strange mutated vehicles 2000DS toured the world with their family at breakneck speed, playing gigs, having fights

and often being chased and beaten by the police. 

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When thye ran out of diesel and money in Berlin on Unification Day 1990 they played a street gig as people poured over the the newly opened border.

Huge swathes of the city were empty and the band ended up living

on No Man's Land, next to a stretch of the Berlin Wall.

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Despite their anarchist lifestyle and modus operandi of 'smash the state' the band shot and collected a vast amount of video, photography and tour paraphernalia. Like looking through a window into a lost world, this archive not only presents a valuable record of times and places few other people dared to go but it also acts like a family album.

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For Gwyn and for Josie, who still has gaps in her childhood memories

due to the brain damage inflicted by the crash,

there are mixed feelings about the family's past.

In some footage Josie can be seen aged 5,

dancing around onstage as 2000DS let rip behind her.

Sometimes she had to man the door and ask for donations,

holding her own against hardcore punks four times her age.

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In 1996, things began to fall apart after a North American tour. Soon after, her mother Kath and lead singer and father Gary separated. Within a few months she was involved in her first car accident, aged 11.

Although miraculously escaping serious injury, her mother Kath

was tragically left permanently disabled.

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As Kath began a very slow recovery, she demonstrated tremendous willpower and eventually after years of treatment she became able enough to

travel the world again. 2000DS fragmented during these years

but Gary started other musical endeavors.

He became a champion of young grass roots bands,

recording songs and publishing them on his own record label.

He also carried on organising tours, gigs and music festivals.  

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In 2011 Kath, Gary, Gwyn and younger sister Caisie were on the

last leg of their trip round the world. A trip that took

some organising with Kath in her wheelchair.

But on the family's trip to Jamaica tragedy occurred.

Their minibus was involved in a head-on collision and Kath,

Gary, Caisie and Josie's best friend Talei were all killed.

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Gwyn and Josie have persevered but the life they grew up with has gone. 

Squats have been demolished and redeveloped, communities scattered - crushed by unrelenting gentrification. Travellers have all but disappeared,

confined to permanent sites as their way of life became outlawed.

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Recently the Cost Of Living Crisis has driven a rise in homelessness

but also an interest in a new style of 'van living'. 

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As a story we unfold the past through interviews with the remaining

Dirty Squatters to witness a time were DIY culture and

communal living promised a new utopia.

Serving as part human interest, part music documentary, the story is a reminder that there is another way to live, with the idea of family at it's core.

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